How to Fix: Can't Change Firefox Home Page

Infopackets Reader 'Raburt' writes:

" Dear Dennis,

A friend of mine migrated his system to Windows 10. Somehow in the process, the home page in his Firefox changed and he has been unable to change the home page back to what it was previously. One of the things I suggested was to be sure that his computer is not using a proxy setting. Do have some other suggestions? Thanks. "

My response:

Assuming that the home page has not been hijacked due to a malware infection, oftentimes the easiest way to fix a program that isn't working properly (and in this case, a web browser) is to reinstall it. Reinstalling a program fixes registry entries that may be corrupt, as well as file permission problems which may have been hosed.

How to Reinstall Firefox (Clean Install)

Here are the steps to reinstall / clean install Firefox:

1. Go to mozilla.org and download the latest Firefox; I recommend saving it to your desktop for easy retrieval. Note that the link I've provided will download the full version of Firefox and not just a 'stub' file. Stub files are small executables that download the main Firefox program every time you launch the stub. On the other hand, the full version can be saved to your hard drive re-used as many times as you want without having to download it again.
    
2. After the download has completed, close all open Firefox windows. If you are using Firefox to view this article, then you may want to copy the web page URL and open the page inside of another browser, such as Internet Explorer, Edge, or Chrome.
    
3. Now it's time to manually delete the Firefox folder from the computer (this will not delete your user profile, which is stored in another location). To do so, we will need to open up an administrative command prompt; click Start and then type in "cmd" (no quotes); wait for CMD.EXE or Command Prompt to show up in the Start Menu and then right click it and select "Run as Administrator".
    
4. Use your mouse to highlight the text below:
   
   rmdir /q /s "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Mozilla Firefox"
   rmdir /q /s "%ProgramFiles%\Mozilla Firefox"
   @echo ON
    
5. Right click over top of the highlighted text above and select Copy from the dialogue menu.
    
6. Go to the administrative command prompt window that you opened up in Step #3, then right click in the middle of the window and select Paste from the dialogue menu. The text you copied in Step #4 should now output to the administrative command prompt.
    
7. Next, reinstall Firefox using the file you downloaded in Step #1.

Once Firefox has been reinstalled you should be able to change the home page.

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About the author: Dennis Faas is the owner and operator of Infopackets.com. With over 30 years of computing experience, Dennis' areas of expertise are a broad range and include PC hardware, Microsoft Windows, Linux, network administration, and virtualization. Dennis holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science (1999) and has authored 6 books on the topics of MS Windows and PC Security. If you like the advice you received on this page, please up-vote / Like this page and share it with friends. For technical support inquiries, Dennis can be reached via Live chat online this site using the Zopim Chat service (currently located at the bottom left of the screen); optionally, you can contact Dennis through the website contact form.