Classic problem uninstalling TweakUI

From: Steven (steven_at_hexcellent.net)
Date: 07/02/04 

Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 14:31:20 -0700

Do a Google search for ToolBarCop.exe and you will be able
to easily remove it from your IE.

Steven

>-----Original Message-----
>I have googled-groups this problem. It seems to be a
common problem.
>I have TweakUI 1.33 installed on Windows 2000 Pro, SP4
(Inspiron 8000
>laptop). When I uninstall, there is a message saying it
seems to be
>already uninstalled, and asked me whether I want to
remove the entry
>from the Add/Remove_Programs menu. Sometimes I say yes,
other times I
>say no (I have tried reinstalling and uninstalling many
times). All
>attempts are unsuccessful. After attempting to
uninstall, there are
>no TweakUI entries in
>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersi
on\Run.
>However, windows explorer still behaves as if TweakUI was
present i.e.
>window focus/activation still follows the mouse pointer.
Note that at
>no time does the TweakUI show up in the task manager
(before or after
>an install or an attempted uninstall). This is even
after a reboot.
>
>In my "best" attempted uninstall so far, I reinstalled
TweakUI, used
>SpyBot's "System Startup" tool to prevent its launching
at system
>startup, rebooted the computer, and then used
Add/Remove_Program to
>remove TweakUI. The result was the same, including the
error message
>saying that it was already uninstalled. Note that
SpyBot's "System
>Startup" tool seems more appropriate than msonfig because
(rumour has
>it that) msconfig wasn't really meant for Win2K. In
fact, TweakUI
>doesn't even show up in msconfig, but it does show up in
SpyBot's
>System Startup.
>
>I have also tried removing TweakUI from a _desktop_, also
running Win2K
>Pro SP4. When I tried to do this as nonadministrator, I
got the same
>message (it was already uninstalled). When I tried it as
>administrator, it did not give the message about TweakUI
already being
>uninstalled, so I thought it worked. However, the window
focus still
>follows the mouse pointer after rebooting. The lack of
an error
>message seems to get me a bit closer to a successful
uninstall; since
>this is related to the use of an administrator account, I
suspect that
>the uninstall problem is due at least in part to
permissions set on
>registry subtrees. On the laptop, however, I was already
logged in as
>administrator when I got the error message.
>
>Some usenet postings suggested editing the program
removal entry to
>modify the behaviour of uninstall. I tried to explore
the possibility
>of doing this by pressing the Change/Remove button in the
>Add/Remove_Program menu. I was hoping that it would let
me change
>something, or at least prompt for confirmation before
removing. It
>didn't; it immediately tried to remove the program, with
the various
>degrees of apparent "success" that I've described so far.
>
>Thank you for any suggestions.
>
>Fred
>--
>Fred Ma
>Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
>Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
>.
>