AOHell

[Bill]

I have a friend that has a computer running XP Home with SP2. I help this
guy maintain his computer on a regular basis. He has cable internet, but he
moved and had to wait a week to have his service turned back on. While
waiting despite me telling him not to put AOHell on his system, he did it
anyways because he can't live w/o internet for a few days. Not that I blame
him, but there are possibly other alternatives to this monstrosity that so
many wacked out people pay outrageous prices for. No problems that I'm aware
of, but I know that AOHell leaves a lot of junk behind (registry entries
etc.) anyone know of any tools or the like that might get rid of this
beast's remnants? TIA

 

[R. McCarty]

System Restore back to a Pre-AOL point.
Now his biggest problem is convincing AOL customer support
that he doesn't "Really" want to keep their service.

 

[Bill]

That part is his problem alone, I won't touch it, but from the operational
standpoint of his computer he will bug me to death....a restore point
probably won't do him much good, he probably doesn't have one pre-aol. Will
look into that. If he doesn't have any restore points, can you think of
anything that might even list the most common things AOHell leaves behind?
tried googling, but didn't get anything useful... TIA

 

[R. McCarty]

You didn't mention which Version of AOL he installed. Usually,
you can check up on "Remnants" by doing the following:

1. Check Program Files for existence of AOL setup folder
2. Run Regedit and search using string "aol" (lowercase)
3. Check Add/Remove programs for AIM & other AOL based
components like Real Audio, the core uninstaller may leave

Perhaps newer AOL versions clean up after themselves better.
Too bad he "Jumped" in when there are other free setups that
won't tangle up the system (PeoplePC, etc)

 

[Darrell S]

Use GoBack to return his computer to pre AOL status. If you don't have that
use DriveImage to re-write your hard drive to a version you saved before he
installed AOL. (snicker) I have both systems protecting my computer.
Love them. Well worth the effort and cost.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I have a friend that has a computer running XP Home with SP2. I help
this guy maintain his computer on a regular basis. He has cable
internet, but he moved and had to wait a week to have his service
turned back on. While waiting despite me telling him not to put
AOHell on his system, he did it anyways because he can't live w/o
internet for a few days. Not that I blame him, but there are
possibly
other alternatives to this monstrosity that so many wacked out
people
pay outrageous prices for. No problems that I'm aware of, but I know
that AOHell leaves a lot of junk behind (registry entries etc.)
anyone know of any tools or the like that might get rid of this
beast's remnants? TIA

Sadly, the only practical way I've ever found to completely
remove AOL from an operating system is to format the hard drive and
perform a clean installation. I absolutely loathe having to resort to
a hard drive format to fix what should be a relatively minor issue,
but it takes a lot less time than manually removing/replacing all of
the Windows system files that AOL replaces with their own versions and
the hundreds of unnecessary registry entries.

--

Bruce Chambers

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You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having
both at once. - RAH

 

[Guest]

After he gets the tech stuff fixed, be prepared to go to war with those
AOLSOBs over billing your account. They absolutely, positively will not
cancel unless your credit card company notifies them twice to do so. Cross
all your Ts when protesting the charges, too. And if all else fails, do a
Google for the existing class actions against AOL. You're not alone.