Will somebody help me get rid of pinball???

[Stephen Riley]

Okay - please, because I fear I'm losing my mind...

How can this be happening? I try to delete pinball, and get an error saying
pinball cannot be deleted, *because Windows is using it*...

I couldn't uninstall it from control panel, because pinball wasn't listed.
However, after advice from an MVP on this group, I reinstalled all the other
Windows games, then uninstalled the whole lot through control panel in the
hope this might somehow include pinball. I have a feeling it did, because as
soon as the uninstall started, my (brand new) computer crashed out to a
reboot. On my return I discover all the games are now removed... apart from
pinball, which still will not be deleted... because (still) Windows is using
it.

I had this trouble getting rid of Messenger 4 for XP.

The trouble is that Microsoft thinks it knows what I want to do on my
computer, and it doesn't trust me to be able to look after my computer
myself. I didn't want Messenger 4. I don't want pinball. Microsoft really
doesn't want me to uninstall these programmes for some reason. Either that,
or Windows XP is just off playing pinball when it should be doing its job!

I've been using MS Windows and Word for more than 10 years now, and never
had a problem with any of them.

But XP really stinks, in my opinion. I learn that my computer memory is
effectively half under XP what it would be under any previous Windows
version. I might not mind if there were clear benefits of stability, but
this new computer has crashed more often than the old one. I have yet to see
any benefits at all. My current version of Word 2002 runs much slower under
XP on a Pentium 4 processor than Word version 2 did under Windows 3 on an
old 386 processor. I'm sorry, but it's just terrible.

Also, I'm wondering... how many other programmes are there on my disk that
Windows "needs" (and I don't)? I just want my operating system to be an
operating system. No more.

I'm usually pretty conservative when it comes to stuff like this, but unless
Microsoft bring out a new operating system that doesn't try to wrest control
of my computer from me, then my next operating system will NOT be
Microsoft's.

 

[Steve]

How To Get Rid Of Pinball
----------------------------
Navigate to c:\windows\inf. In the INF folder find file sysoc.inf and double
click on it (file opens with notepad).

(If you can't find INF folder make sure you are showing all files and
folders as folder may be hidden. To enable 'Show hidden files and folders'
simply select Tools then Folder Options from Windows Menu. Then click on the
'View' tab and under the hidden files and folders sub-title you change
change this setting to 'Show hidden files and Folders').

Go to the second large paragraph and look for
Pinball=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,pinball.inf,HIDE,7
Remove the 'hide' and change to : Pinball=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,pinball.inf,,7
Once changed go to file menu and select File then Save.

To simply remove Pinball now go to Control Panel, Add Remove Programs, Add
Remove Windows Components. Now You will see that Pinball appears in the list
now and is no longer hidden. Simply remove from here as with any other
program.

 

[Stephen Riley]

Thanks for trying. I took your advice, and sure enough Pinball appeared in
the add/remove box. Useful to know, though hardly a good reflection on XP
user friendliness.

However, after "uninstalling" Pinball, my computer crashed to a reboot
again... and recovered from "a serious error"... and what do you know?
Pinball's still there! And I still can't delete it!

Please will someone help me with this, because I'm really starting to get
paranoid about Microsoft! :-o