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PC Knowledge Base - Windows Operating System IE and Security Zones

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The security zone information can viewed on the Security tab in the Intenet Options dialogue box.
Internet Explorer Setup creates five security zone entries (My Computer, Local Intranet, Trusted Sites, Internet, and Restricted Sites) in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive in the registry when you log on the first time after installing Internet Explorer.
When you view the information if one or more security zone icons do not appear the following may be the case

If these keys may not be created the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Zones key may be left empty. In this case, Internet Explorer should use the entries under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE instead.
If roaming profiles are enabled and you can log on to the network from computers running both Internet Explorer 4.x and Internet Explorer 5, only the modified zone information is written to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive when you change security settings in Internet Explorer 4.x. At this point, the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\InternetSettings\Zones key is no longer empty and the zone information is incomplete.

When you start Internet Explorer 5 to view security settings, Internet Explorer 5 retrieves the zone information from the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive instead of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE hive because the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Zones key is not empty. This causes an incomplete zones list to be displayed.

The information applies to:

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 for Windows NT 4.0
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 for Windows NT 4.0 SP 1
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 for Windows NT 4.0 SP 2
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 for Windows NT 4.0

When you attempt to view the Security tab in the Internet Properties dialogue box, your computer may stop responding (hang) or you may receive one of the following error messages:

An error occurred while Windows was working with the Control Panel file C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\INETCPL.CPL.
-or-
EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in module INETCPL.CPL at address
When you click OK or Close, the Internet Properties dialogue box closes.

This behaviour can occur if a registry key is damaged.
WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. There is no guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

To resolve this issue, use Registry Editor to remove the following Registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Setting\Zones

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 for Windows 95
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 for Windows 95
Microsoft Windows 98


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