Vista - How can I prevent cookie enabling by other apps?

I normally operate IE 7 with the followiong options set in Advanced Privacy
Settings: Override automatic cookie handling CHECKED, First-party Cookies
ACCEPT, Third-party Cookies BLOCK, Always allow session cookies CHECKED.
This prevents bad unfriendly sites from letting their 'unwashed partners' put
advertising or tracking cookies on my machine.

Lately, I have discovered that something is turning this setting off --
resetting it to ACCEPT all cookies all the time. I have repeatedly gone in
and reset this. How can I lock this privacy setting so that nothing can turn
it off? At the time, I have no clue what application, rogue website, or even
Windows system component is turning this setting off. I have tried to track
it down but am at my wits end. I am getting a lot of tracking and ad cookies
from URLS I haven't even gone to placed on my machine.

I am using Windows Live One Care on all my PCs and it is on, updated, and
set for high-medium security. It says I am fully protected and have no
viruses, trojans, or worms. What's going on??? I would expect that these
settings should not be able to be changed unless I personally change them
myself. Oh, and I only have one account on this machine and I am the
administrator.

--PMM

"Phil McCrum" <PhilMcCrum@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:94828166-C726-4FDF-A2D1-1F8E3FF3127F@xxxxxxPMM,

You have an application on your system that is causing your privacy
settings to revert to the default state. Are you running Spybot S&D or other
antispy programs that could be causing this? Many programs will disallow or
revert your IE settings if you have configured them, either knowingly or
unknowingly, to do so.

C.B.


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and less fortunate among us.