Jan
03
2005

Removing Wanadoo search bar from Outlook Express

It seems that using the Wanadoo/Freeserve installation CD adds a search/ad bar to Outlook Express, as I discovered when fixing a friend’s PC.

This post over at the Net 4 Nowt forum explains how to remove the annoying bar.

What you need to do is open Registry Editor (Start -> Run -> regedit.exe), navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Identities/{..}/Software/Microsoft/Outlook Express/5.0 and delete the key named BodyBarPath.

If you want to remove the “…provided by Wanadoo” text in the status bar, also delete the WindowTitle key.

Then restart Outlook Express and you’re done.

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Written by Chris Barnes in: Hints & Tips | Tags: , , ,

29 Comments »

  • Anonymous says:

    Cheers Chris…. worked a treat… I ****** hate Wanadoo

    Jeff H

  • Anonymous says:

    Nice one, Chris. That has been bugging me for weeks.

  • Anonymous says:

    Fantastic – been trying to remove that for ages! Cheers

  • Anonymous says:

    Chris you are a star – Wanadoo, should be called dontwanadoo!! that search bar was really getting on my tits – your solution worked a treat.

    Many thanks

    Will R

  • Anonymous says:

    Thank you thank you thank you. This was a nightmare to remove. I cannot understand how Wanadoo can claim to be the “provider” of a product written by Microsoft.

  • Anonymous says:

    Thanks. Sheer class

  • Anonymous says:

    thanks a bunch. that thing was so annoying. i dont know how they feel they have the right to change loads of settings on your PC without giving you the option to remove or opt out.

  • Anonymous says:

    Thanks a lot. Really useful tip. Much appreciated.

  • Anonymous says:

    thanks very much. To install rubbish like that without consent is an absolute disgrace.

  • Anonymous says:

    Absolutely agree with all the other comments. I hate firms that change your PC. Thanks.

  • Anonymous says:

    I bought the wanadoo dial up for one month, to tide me over….no contract and I’d run out of internet hours elsewhere….little did I realise that the ‘contract’ was infact the stealing of my visual and mental space in my outlook express……thank you for freeing me from those fetters. Previously I was much exacerbated by this wanadoo search bar invasion …now thanks to you all calm in outlok express land.

  • Anonymous says:

    Thanks Chris! … wazzup with those wannabe ISP anyway?!

    Morten

  • Anonymous says:

    At last! Thanks very much!

  • Hugo says:

    Hi Chris,

    thanks for those tips; they both worked – very glad I found this post on Google.
    This has been annoying me for ages, originally my brother had
    used a freeserve CD (before they were bought out by Wanadoo)
    to install a broadband connection on my laptop; now I’m using
    Virgin.net

    What I found is that if I type in a non-existant domain, I get redirected to search.wanadoo.co.uk when I use IE – obviously, this is part of the same sneakware package – if you
    find out how to kill this please let me know.

    I also had the ‘provided by Freeserve’ title on IE too, but killed
    this by doing a registry search for that phrase and then altering
    the relevant key.

    Thanks, Hugo

  • Andy Sutton says:

    Many tnx for this useful tip. Worked a treat. Cheers

  • dave humphrey says:

    hi chris i’m trying to get rid of the wanadoo banner and followed the instructions but i cant see a key called body bar path–could it be called something else or am i doing it wrong??

  • Geoff Bond says:

    Thanks for the advice. Very satisfying to remove the W***** etc

  • Colin Ryder says:

    Thanks Chris – much appreciated

  • Thanks a lot Chris.
    My free website used to be hosted by Freeserve and when Wanadoo took them over, the only way I could keep the site was to click on their dialup settings button against my better judgement. And lo and behold! It took over my computer! This was the last thing I had to get rid of.

  • Iain says:

    worked a treat …thanks

  • Claire says:

    Muchly appreciated. Thank you!

  • Tan says:

    Thanks for this, now how do I get my outlook express to use my ntlworld smtp server not the freeserve one?

  • TJ says:

    Thanks a lot. The solution was spot-on and got rid of the annoyance. Great Job done. Thanks again.

  • dave says:

    Thanks great fix.

  • Mike says:

    You are a legend. Thankyou

  • russ says:

    At last I am free of freeserve, thank you so much

  • Noel Clark says:

    I am seriously troubled by my sky Internet connection being
    hi-jacked by Wanadoo and causing my all sorts of connection
    problems. This generally does not always affect email . Has
    amyone else had this problem and how do I get rid of it!

  • Chris says:

    Noel: I think your best bet (if you’re not getting a sensible answer out of Sky) is to take your machine into a local PC repair shop – not PC World! – or call someone out.

  • BC says:

    Goodbye ‘Outlook Express provided by Wanadoo’ search bar. Thanks very much for your help. Another happy bunny! That has been annoying me for so long. (I helped to set up a Wanadoo account via my computer for a friend a couple of years ago and somehow the Wanadoo search bar got stuck on my Outlook Express.)

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