Rachel said:
Thanks Paul for the tips. I know I have seem some gear software in folders
but I know I've deleted most I could find but some wouldn't delete. I'll
check out the link you gave me. If off the top of your head you happen to
know why the rest of the programs won't delete that'd be great too but I'll
definitely check out the link. Thanks alot for your help
I have another tool you might use. I used this to cure a problem
I had with sound on my computer.
The tool is called Process Monitor from Sysinternals. Sysinternals
was an external site, until Microsoft acquired the site and hired
the software developer who made some great tools.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cb56073f-62a3-4ed8-9dd6-40c84cb9e2f5.aspx
Click on the Process Monitor link, and there is a download link
at the bottom of the page. This is the Process Monitor package.
http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/ProcessMonitor.zip
The way the programs generally work, is there is no "installation"
as such. When the package is unzipped, there will be an .exe file
inside. You click that, to start the tool, approving any EULA
presented on the screen. And then you get to use the tool immediately.
The first thing to do, is go to Filter:Filter menu item, and set
up the filter dialog. At the top of the list of filters,
you'll see something like
"Process Name" "is" "iTunes.exe" then "include"
That is a "filter rule". It says, "if you see a process
by the name of iTunes.exe running, trace all the system
calls it is making". If you look at the rules, some
are red colored, and at least one is green. The green one
is active. You can add multiple rules, so more than one
kind of activity can be filtered at a time. The purpose
of filtering, is to reduce the "noise level", since the
program can collect an immense amount of data.
You can delete any green colored rule that is inappropriate
for what you're trying to do.
Once you've applied your new rule (to collect info when
iTunes.exe shows up), and click OK, the filter dialog
should go away. The main window will now only show entries,
when the filter rule detects that program is active.
Data will continue to be collected, until you go to
File:Capture Events and remove the tick mark there. The
data capture will stop after a delay. You'd do that,
for example, if you'd quit the iTunes program, on the
assumption you had captured the erroneous activity.
In my case, I was looking for activities by my sound
mixer ("mixer.exe") control panel. That controls my sound
card, and it would not start properly. By using Process
Monitor, I was able to see "mixer.exe" was attempting
to access some (non-existent) registry entries. Once I
figured out what the registry entries were normally for,
I was able to correct the registry (return it to its original
state from when the OS was installed).
Using such a tool is a long shot, but you may, when running
iTunes.exe, see a correlation between some registry activity
in the Process Monitor window, at the same time that iTunes
kicks up a fuss about not being able to burn an iTunes CD.
For example, iTunes may be attempting to look for a
GearSoftware registry entry.
Paul
