my mate seems to have put a password on to his content advisor and now cannot get onto any website at all.he doesn't even know how it happened in the first place and does'nt even know the password.does anyone know a way around this? some kind of back door to switch it off without knowing the password...i realy dont want to format his harddrive again because of this....

Not sure if this will work. I've just tried it on my machine and it seems to have worked ok.

go to start -> run -> type regedit and hit enter.

browse to... HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies and select the "ratings" directory. In the right hand pane, there should be for registry entries, the last of which is called "key"

Under the .Default entrie, there should be one called FileName0 or similar. click on file -> export (just to be on the safe side) and save the selected branch of the registry to the desktop or somewhere. Rightclick FileName0 and delete it.

Open Internet explorer to be greeted by a "check for missing information in content advisor" message. ok it, and you'll get the content advisor popping up to get a password from you. click ok without a passwrd and you get a "wrong password" message. Ok it, and close the IE window. Maybe this will happen a few times. On mine, the next time I opened the window, I had full internet access and Content Advisor was once more disabled.

Hope this helps.

EDIT:Thinking about it, would somebody techy like to test this? it almost seems too easy. Obviously enable content advisor first, then backup the appropriate part of the registry and just retore it if it doesn't work.

thanks mate ill give it a go today when i go over to my friends.ill let you know the out come later on in the day.any other sugestions from people out there would be a help as it'll give me more options to work with...cheers

any news on whether this solution works for anybody other than me? I'm acctually quite intrigued by this.

hello spike sorry for not getting back to you sooner but ive been on holiday for the last week.i tried what you told me and it worked first time.my mate told me to thankyou for the information.how the hell did you figue it out in the first place????anyway thanks alot spike you where a big help.

Tell your mate he's welcome

How did I work it out? A very small amount of experience with a little research, some trial and error, and a little bit of luck It didn't take too long, which I find a little worrying to be honest.

Google was suggesting that the "key" entry in the registry should be deleted, followed by a file called ratings.pol which doesn't exist in XP. A number of people wre saying that this no longer worked, and so I decided to try something else.

I have to be honest though, I'm still suprised that this works. Content advisor should NOT be so easily disabled (even if it is handy to be able to do! lol). The entire point of the password is that it can't be disabled. This makes a mockery of it really when you think about it.