Comments | xrmndml: Systray/Taskbar hell

xrmndml

Systray/Taskbar hell

Dec 17, 2007 22:57

I have an icon from a program that loads when windows starts up, even though I deleted all associated programs, and I deleted every registry entry associated with the the program.

The icon is non-functional, but fucking annoying as it gives me bogus warnings that distract what i'm doing.

please help me make it stop.

Comments 10

theweaselking December 18 2007, 14:28:19 UTC

You've obviously missed a couple, somewhere.

Start with: What program is it? Knowing that will help, a lot, in the cleanup.

Right off the top of my head, I'd suggest downloading CCleaner and running it's registry scan/fix repeatedly until it stops detecting errors. If it still shows up after *that*, I'd run HiJackThis and see where it's showing up, there.

xrmndml December 18 2007, 14:41:55 UTC

I really can't figure out where. I can account for each program that is loaded in the software->mircosoft->windows->run/run once etc registry areas. All are programs that were there before.

I don't know what the exact program is, I clicked yes on something online, and it installed. after install it claimed to be a virus/adware scanner, called something like virusprotect 3.9 or something similar. i deleted all the files, so i don't know.

Its also not in the active memory that I can see. When I load safe mode, the icon STILL loads, and I can close every non-system critical task and the icon is STILL there.

Its also not one of the active services when I run msconfig.

I'll try those programs when I get home, but I currently I'm blaming elves.

theweaselking December 18 2007, 14:57:19 UTC

It's a fake spyware scanner, meaning it is, itself, spyware ( ... )

xrmndml December 18 2007, 15:11:48 UTC

i've done all of that. in safe mode, with nothing running but microsoft services and mcafee, the icon is still there. i'll try it without mcafee when I get home.

I did, as soon as I realized my mistake, realize it was malware and took action. I deleted everything on my computer that I thought could be related to it. the program isn't running, the icon doesn't open the same bogus virus scanner it did before, it just tries to open a webpage to get the program installed again.

I am 99.99% certain that I killed the program, at least the part that would have really caused me problems.

the program was virusprotect 3.9 and there are removal instructions online, but they pretty much just cover what I already did. I have some .dll's to hunt for, but I already deleted every single file the system would allow me to that was created on 12/17/07.

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