Uninstall dilemma

[leej]

Last year a friend installed me something called Windows Toolkit that put me a red circle with a white X on it in my start-up. If I click on this it brings up a countdown to shut down Windows in 10 seconds or immediately if I prefer. However, when this was installed it took away my shutdown that was originally on my start button, (you know, bottom left of screen.) I think this Toolkit is causing me some problems, so what I need to know is if I uninstall this Toolkit, will I get my shutdown facility back again in the start menu?

[mjc]

Maybe, some programs keep a very good record of the changes they make during installation and are able to restor them when uninstalled. About the only way that I know to know for sure is try it,but have the program ready to reinstall if it doesn't return the settings. Also check the settings of the program it may let diasable some featurs and return them to the default settings.

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mjc
I'm making my own links list:Computer Links (http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/highrise/11/index.htm)

[BigBlue66]

Hi,

I agree with MJC. Before resorting to an uninstall of the program, check its properties. There might be an option to turn off the 'load on startup' feature, which I would think would return your Start menu options for shut down.

Otherwise, you can go to Start/Run and type msconfig. Once the System Configuration Manager has loaded, click on the Startup tab. Uncheck the line item that relates to your Tools program. Reboot. This will do about the same as the disabling loading on startup as mentioned above. If the program is not running, then hopefully, your original shutdown options will return.

Either scenario will leave the program on your HD, but will disable it from running, unless you want it to run, then you would reverse whichever option above that you used to disable it.

If the above options do not return your Start menu shut-down options, and if you really want to uninstall it, check to see if the program itself has an uninstall option. If not, then you will have to use the Add/Remove Programs option in Control Panel. However, this very seldom removes all registry entries, so it might cause problems later.

Long story short, try disabling the program on start-up, or any other options relating to your question that it might have, and if that doesn't work, then try uninstalling it, first using the program's own uninstall feature if available.

Post back with any progress or further questions.

Cheers,

BB 66

[leej]

Thanks MJC and BB66.

I have tried on a couple of occasions to stop this thing from starting up when my computer starts, but I have had little success. The problem is that I haven't had my PC for long and I don't pretend to know much about them. You see, I get error messages popping up all over the place telling me that Explorer is causing faults in Webcheck, Kernel32.DLL and a couple of others. These messages pop up when I leave my mouse alone for a few minutes and I think that if I uninstall this Toolkit thingy then everything will be cool.

I'll certainly try all that you have suggested and I'll let you know the outcome.

Thanks once again!

leej

[mjc]

I posted this link in another post, it's for troublesshooting Kernel32 errors.

Here is a Microsft link for one kind of Kernel32 error:Explorer caused an invalid ...... (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q187/9/65.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=kernel32.dll%20%20&rnk=14&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=W98)


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mjc
I'm making my own links list:Computer Links (http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/highrise/11/index.htm)

[Technochic]

Couple of suggestions and questions in addition to the above... If you are going to uninstall, check that the program has it's own uninstall program (will usually be in the same start menu folder with the shortcut icon and will be titled "toolkit") and use that. Also, does this toolkit have any other features besides the auto shutdown? It might be related to system tools which monitor your system for faults and helps repair them. You also might want to reinstall your version of Windows (which one is that?) to see if the shutdown facility will return to the start menu.

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~ Jana

Laziness is the Mother of Technology...