How do you delete a program which the computer thinks is already deleted?

Life Technology
1

About a month ago, I noticed that there was a program called “Internet Optimizer” on my computer which I never installed. It’s a very annoying program because it causes my internet browser (IE) to go to http://www.internet-optimizer.com/Help/NavigationError every time I misspell the address of a website. Also, even for websites that are not misspelled, it often accidentally sends me to http://www.internet-optimizer.com/Help/NavigationError instead of going to the actual website where I want to go.

As soon as I discovered the program, I tried to delete it, but my mistake was that instead of deleting it by using the control panel called “Add/Remove Programs”, I just deleted the Internet Optimizer folders from C:\Program Files and from the Start Menu Programs folder.

But then I noticed that Internet Optimizer was still running on my computer because I still often got sent to http://www.internet-optimizer.com/Help/NavigationError instead of going to the actual website where I want to go.

So then I tried to delete Internet Optimzer using the “Add/Remove Programs” Control Panel, but when I selected “Internet Optimizer”, I got a message that said something like “Internet Optimizer has already been deleted. Do you want to remove it from the list of programs in this control panel?” so I said “Yes” (which I now regret!).

This program seems to running all the time on my computer, so apparently it starts running every time I boot up my computer. I thought that every program which is run when the computer is booted is either in C:\WINDOWS\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp or listed in the “Startup” tab of “msconfig”. But when I went to C:\WINDOWS\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp, Internet Optimizer isn’t there. So then I tried looking in “msconfig”, but when I went to “Startup”, I couldn’t find Internet Optimizer there, either. (Well, there are a few programs there which I’m not sure what they do, but their names don’t sound anything like “Internet Optimizer”.)

Then I tried to delete it by hitting Control Alt Delete, but it’s not there, either. (Although there are two programs listed there which I’m not sure what they are: “Khooker” and “Pctvoice”.)

The only other way I can think to delete this annoying program is to re-install it and then delete it the proper way. (Using the Add/Remove Programs control panel). But now I can’t even find any website which will let me download Internet Optimizer! When I did a Google Search, it only found a lot of irrelevant matches, including a similar program called “Web Rocket”, but that’s a completely different program. And when I go to the homepage for Internet Optimizer (www.internet-optimizer.com), there isn’t anywhere to click to install it!

So my question is: How do I get rid of a program which the computer “thinks” is already deleted?

2

Try a program to uninstall like…

Windelete 3.0

or

reinstall Windows, if you can, on a fresh disk/formatted disk.

I suspect it may be spyware of some form. You could try Search and destroy 1.2. Google will bring that up.

BW
Kenneth

3

You’re right. I figured out that Internet Optimizer really is spyware. No wonder I couldn’t remember installing it!

Now I’m going to download the “Spybot Search & Destroy” program to try to get rid of Internet Optimizer. I’ll let you know whether not I was successful in deleting it.

4

for spyware I recommend adaware (do a google search - lavasoft, I believe)

5

You can get an almost full listing of what all the different programs in your startup folder do at pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pa … p_full.htm

They had this to say about the two you mentioned.

[i]Khooker: SiS Keyboard Daemon. System Tray utility which gets installed by the drivers of the latter day SiS VGA cards. Can cause errors at startup and isn’t required

Pctvoice:The program PCTVoice is used by the modem to interface with your computer and also used for some V.80 functions for Video Conferencing. if you uncheck it, it comes back. It

6

adaware is nice, but spybot search and destroy is more complete and also has an immunizer which blocks installation of some spyware.

spybot.eon.net.au/

7

Stragbasher, thanks a lot for that link! I went there and looked up every process that was listed in msconfig as well as every process that came up when I hit Alt-Control-Delete. Then I unchecked Khooker and Pctvoice in msconfig because they seem useless, so they just use up resources. And contrary to what that website said, Pctvoice actually never came back after I unchecked it. And since I have a DSL connection, I never use my internal modem anyway.

So now I am sure that nothing listed in msconfig or Alt-Control-Delete is Internet Optimizer. So it must be hidden somewhere in the registers.

I just installed Ad-aware and ran it, but it didn’t find Internet Optimizer. Tomorrow I’ll install and run Spybot Search & Destroy. I’ll let everyone know what happens.

8

I just ran Ad-aware again and this time I looked more closely at the results. It never found any file or register called “Internet Optimizer”, but it found a lot of files and registers called “istbar” and they were all listed as “malware”. When I saw those results yesterday, I ignored them because I have never heard of “istbar” and I didn’t know what “malware” was. But now I found out (from the “Wikipedia” website) that “malware” means “malicious software”, which means viruses, worms, trojan horses, and spyware!

So then I used Ad-aware to delete all of the malware (which were all references to “istbar”), and then I re-opened IE and tried to go to a non-existant website. Voila! Now it no longer sends me to the Internet Optimizer website!

Then I ran Spybot Search & Destroy, and it didn’t find any malware at all (since I had already deleted all of it using Ad-aware).

Problem solved! Thanks a lot everyone for your help!