Renegade program....

[Gru]

Stupidly, I downloaded this screen saver program from Space.com...
I thought it was a desktop wallpaper download, thus the reason I now want to get rid of it.


I went to Add/remove programs in control panel; saw it there, clicked it, removed it..
the icon was still in my tray.

Restarted, it was still there..

Turn the computer on and off again-- still there.


How do I remove this program, it's still sitting in my icon area!

UGH, I think that's pretty smarmy to make programs that don't uninstall right !!

Thanks ahead of time......

 

[shdunnin]

The first step would be to identify the executable(s) that is/are being loaded at start time. To help with this task, you can download and install RegCleaner from

http://www.worldstart.com/weekly-download/archives/reg-cleaner4.3.htm

When you run it, you can view a "Startup" tab which shows you all the programs that start up everytime your reboot your PC.

When you went to add remove programs and removed it, did the program disappear from the Add/Remove program list?? If so, then you're going to have to identify the files associated with that program and manually delete them all. You'll also have to Ctrl+Alt+Delete, and end any appropriate running process(es) associated with that program before deleting the files.

See if you can pinpoint the executables that get loaded upon restart with RegCleaner, and we'll go from there. Hope this helps!

 

[Gru]

Oh, man... this oughtta be rich.... Locating those associated files, and what not...


(to answer your question, no, the program is no longer listed in the 'add/remove program' list, which is why I think it's so damn shady that the icon is still functioning in my icon tray area...)

I'll try that thingie you suggested now and report back with my findings. thanx.

 

[Gru]

Unfortunately, this program you recommended is giving me problems

I don't know why... I try to run it, and it is nowhere to be seen, but when I hit ctrl/alt/delete, it shows it is running....


I've uninstalled and reinstalled it several times; don't know why it's doing this.

 

[inuyasha320]

go to start and click on run then type in regedit then press enter and then in the regedit window click on edit then click on find then type in the name fo the file that you want to delete

when it finds it

delete is then press f3 to search again and it will find more and when it does, just delete it

do thin until you get a message that says finished searching registry




go to start then go to search then click on files and folders then go to all files then type in the file that you are looking for then delete it

this is how you manualy delete a program


this will also remove the program 100%

read each registry key it selects for you before deleting



you can also do this if the program is still running.


go to start, run then type in msconfig then click on the tab that says startup

then uncheck any program that you don't want windows opening for you when it starts up.. (the more startup items you uncheck, the faster your bootup will be and the faster windows will run)

 

[shdunnin]

I've seen RegCleaner not work in these two instances:

- the PC was dual processor
- the CPU was 64-bit (although technically it should work in this case...)

If either of the two cases are true in your case, you may not be able to run RegCleaner. The other thing I can suggest is to download HijackThis, choose the option to "Do Systems Scan and Save a Log File", and then post that log file. That way we can get a pretty good look at what is running on your PC, and go from there.

You can download HijackThis from:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html

Good luck!

 

[Gru]

I went into regedit and I removed the one file that came up that appeared to be associated with the program.

Pushed F3, no more came up, so I figured I was done, as you said.


I am leary, however, of removing things from regedit, so I'll try to steer clear of this in the future


Shdunnin- It was weird, because it worked at first; then I unchecked the screen saver program so it wouldn't load any more (foolishly), restarted and then the regcleaner stopped working...

Oh, well. I'm pretty sure I got rid of it through removing it in the registry; thanks for the advice guys!



Also- Shdunnin- will that adaware remove super-spiders?
Panda scan online told me I had a super-spider...


thanks again!

 

[shdunnin]

Also- Shdunnin- will that adaware remove super-spiders?
Panda scan online told me I had a super-spider...

I'm not sure if AdAware or SpyBot will remove "super-spider", but I did find instructions on how to manually remove it. I noticed you said you don't like messing with windows Registry, so this may not be the solution your were looking for.

Also you could run HijackThis and it should find all registry keys and executables associated with super-spider. It won't tell what they are exactly (i.e. it won't say "these files are associated with super-spider"), but it should list them and you can manually tell HijackThis to remove them. HijackThis will list all items, good and bad, and you can selectively remove certain items.

Here is a link for super-spider removal:
http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/SuperSpider.html

Good luck!