Internet Explorer Runonce Loop

Internet Explorer's Runonce page can cause some of the most annoying problems for Internet users. It was designed to give users the chance to configure some of the settings after the first start of Internet Explorer. It is basically a form that has to be completed so that the Runonce page will not be displayed on consecutive runs of Internet Explorer.

Many users fail to notice this and wonder why the Runonce page instead of their homepage is always showing up when they start Microsoft Internet Explorer. The reason for this is simply. Internet Explorer keeps a record if the form on the runonce page has been filled by the user. If that is not the case it will be displayed again which can be very annoying especially if you do not realize that you have to fill the form.

The Runonce page will also be displayed after resetting Internet Explorer settings. Some users encountered an even bigger problem as the Runonce page was not displayed correctly on their systems. This made it impossible to fill out the form so that the page would not be displayed the next time they would start Internet Explorer.

There are various options how the Runonce page can be disabled. The easiest for most users is to run the software IE7 Runonce Remover which is a small application that can remove the Runonce page.

Users who prefer the manual way can change two Registry settings for the same effect. To do that they would press [Windows R], type [regedit] and hit [enter].

Locate the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main and change the values of the Registry keys RunOnceHasShown and RunOnceComplete to 1.

Update: Recent versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, IE9 for instance, do not display a run once page anymore on first start of the browser. While you may still see an announcement on first start, it won't bother you that much anymore.

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