I tried to uninstall the USB driver for my Env3 cell phone. It simply will not run even through a registry cleaner. Any ideas? Maybe if I reinstall it, the uninstall will work.

TIA,

Honzai_10

Hmmm, reinstall probably will complicate the issue.  Is there any reason you need to uninstall it?  Will it hurt to leave it alone and just not use it?  Unless it is causing problems, it might be more trouble than its worth trying to extract it.

MrMagoo wrote on Jul 13^th, 2010 at 1:57pm:

Is there any reason you need to uninstall it?

I don't know - I just needed it for a brief period of time. In retrospect, this post is probably more about if my XP SP3 system is compromised.

I have recently observed strange behavior that occurred before I began using security apps and routers a few years ago. Not to cross post, but my Ghost v9 program had stopped working (now resolved only by installing v15 - see Ghost Board post).  An error message occured during Ghost v15 initial LiveUpdate; To summarize, it couldn't update by the usual manner because their server's IP address was in my HOSTS file; (it updated anyway.) I keep HOSTS locked for read only, and it's about 930KB, so I couldn't hunt down the entry as it is not alphabetically ordered. I reinstalled the MSMVP HOSTS via its batch file after LiveuPdate finished its workaround routine and auto-rebooted my system. I recently uninstalled AT&T self help tool so I could install their new one. During uninstall, my firewall alerted me to a connection breach. The program wouldn't uninstall under Control Panel but did under CCleaner. Hmmm...

A few months ago, I was in the Admin profile desktop and used "Run As" for a gaming program via my other user profile (also admin). At next reboot, my system had renamed itself from its original Admin account name (random numbers and letters to "DON/Administrator"). I built my own machine so its not OEM.) It appears that the accounts have merged but the one is not deleted - both profiles have their own entries in Documents and Settings folders.

So, I started poking around my system looking for problems in general and uninstalling unneeded apps, especially ones that run at startup despite settings to the contrary. I don't consider them to be malware as they come from legit companies. I don't use cracked SW and I review the lists of malware apps that are listed on well known security web sites. So, that's the deal. Any ideas? TIA,

Honzai_10

It doesn't sound like anything nefarious is going on.  If you had spyware, you'd probably see high CPU utilization, lots of network traffic, extra memory use, or something like that.  If they went through the trouble to infect your computer, chances are high they'd want to use it for something - mining data, sending spam, joining a botnet - all these things should show up as a slower computer with unexplained load somewhere.

You might want to run a virus scan on the disk from outside of Windows.  If you have a BartPE disk (or have the skills to make one, several members here can help,) you can run a scan from there.  Even Safe Mode has a better chance of detecting something than running it from directly within a compromised OS.

Personally, I'd backup all my data and just install Windows fresh.  I don't trust virus scanners completely and would rather just have a clean install once I think there's a chance its infected.  Even if its not infected, Windows seems to destabilize over time - holes build up in the registry and remnants of things I only used briefly accumulate over time.  A fresh install is stable and clean.  I try to do it once a year.  Sorta like spring cleaning for the OS.

MrMagoo wrote on Jul 16^th, 2010 at 6:59pm:

If you had spyware, you'd probably see high CPU utilization, lots of network traffic, extra memory use, or something like that.

True. I probably do need a reinstall. It's been a couple of years. I usually do it yearly. I'll do the Safe Mode scan and I've run BartPE before on W98. Any thing special about XP I should know? I appreciate the feedback. Can't afford to run around in panic mode.

honzai_10 wrote on Jul 16^th, 2010 at 11:52pm:

I've run BartPE before on W98. Any thing special about XP I should know?

Nope.  Since BartPE runs outside of Windows, it should be exactly the same.

Good luck.