Hi Everyone,
I wanted to remove Realplayer TASKTRAY Icon and I went to registry at this location
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.
I removed the realplayer icons and they disappeared in the next reboot. Wonderful! BUT when I ran realplayer once .. it placed its ICON in the same folder of registry again. Can I do something to stop this? I hate when softwares force into my computers memory.
Thanks in Advance,
Sajid Mohammed
sajleo@yahoo.com

Very aggressive marketing. There are some apps that do these sorts of things on every execution, though thankfully I have not noticed too many. Preventing the app itself from adding the registry entry would be extremely difficult, or else blocking trojans from doing the same thing would be easier (they often run themselves from the exact same entry).

One trick I have used was an .inf file placed on my desktop, that was set to remove specific registry entries (.reg files can only add, they cannot remove). I put a shortcut to it in the Startup folder (the last location executed on Windows startup) to clean on every reboot. I would also click on the desktop file to have it fire after annoyances like the one you are experiencing.

I am looking through the archives on my computers and CDs to find it, and will post it here when I do. It's a lot easier than doing it programmatically. Editing entries is as easy as opening the text file too.

Couldn't find it, but here's a no-frills version. This is minimally what a registry-entry-deleting .inf file needs:

[version]
signature = "$CHICAGO$"

[DefaultInstall]
DelReg = NoParasites

[NoParasites]
HKLM,"Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run","EntryNameToDelete"

Just create a text file with a ".inf" extension, and put the above lines in it. The first section describes the target platform ($CHICAGO$ is an old working name). The second section is predefined for default installations, which is fine here. The identifier "DelReg" is also predefined, and should be set to the name of the section that lists registry stuff to delete. You can put as many entries in the last section as you wish, and the syntax used here is for deleting individual registry entries. Many other manipulations are possible, but that's another story.

Obviously, one needs to replace "EntryNameToDelete" with the offending registry entry's name. The easiest way to run the file, is to right-click on it in explorere or the desktop, then select 'Install'. The command line for running it is in the registry under "HKCR\inffile\shell\Install\command". I'm sorry I don't have a more elegant solution.

Cheers

Hi Jeff,
I really appreciate your help and what ever you wrote was very informative.
Thank you soo much again
Sajid Mohammed
sajleo@yahoo.com