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control panel - down arrow - can't remove a listed site

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  • 3 have this problem
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  • Last reply by 720tosa

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Purchased a 2nd hand computer and in the C drive, under control panel and also under the downloads folder, there is a down arrow with some listings. There are 3 listings for porn sites that I cannot delete out of the list. The original listing may be a shortcut that got imbedded, but since I tried to get it out of there, it is now in there 3 times. If I try to highlight and delete, I cannot highlight - instead, it takes me right to the porn site. If I right click, nothing happens at all. I want these things out of there and out of my computer. I do not look at porn and this disturbs me because my grandson goes on my computer when he is here. I need help as I am not computer savvy. Thank you.

Purchased a 2nd hand computer and in the C drive, under control panel and also under the downloads folder, there is a down arrow with some listings. There are 3 listings for porn sites that I cannot delete out of the list. The original listing may be a shortcut that got imbedded, but since I tried to get it out of there, it is now in there 3 times. If I try to highlight and delete, I cannot highlight - instead, it takes me right to the porn site. If I right click, nothing happens at all. I want these things out of there and out of my computer. I do not look at porn and this disturbs me because my grandson goes on my computer when he is here. I need help as I am not computer savvy. Thank you.

Chosen solution

Make sure that you have the Windows product key at hand if you decide to reinstall Windows.

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If that showing up in Firefox or in a list from Windows?

Can you attach a screenshot?

Use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot and make sure that you do not exceed the maximum file size (1 MB).

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If you can see the white box that overlays the control panel box, you can see the drop down list that contains these porn site links - I have tried highlighting to delete, but left click and dragging just took me right to the porn site instead of going to a drop down that included "delete". I tried right clicking, but that does nothing. This seems to be something that was on the computer when I bought it second hand, and then it comes up again if I try to delete it or explore ways to delete them.

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hello, probably you can delete them by selecting them with the down arrow keys and pressing the del key

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Try;

You may have to use the registry editor (regedit.exe) to remove the two listed registry keys.

Navigate to:

  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ComDlg32

Delete the subkeys: LastVisitedPidlMRU and OpenSavePidlMRU

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If you got the original Windows disks, you might consider reinstalling it from scratch. Who knows what kind of craziness might be found on a used computer. (Especially with some of the URLs mentioned in that image!)

Edit: If you have been using this PC for a while, make sure to back up your data before rebuilding.

Modified by jscher2000 - Support Volunteer

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Chosen Solution

Make sure that you have the Windows product key at hand if you decide to reinstall Windows.

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Problem solved - thank you!