Does any one know what this is, its in my control panel, does not seem to do anything, but when I look in find files there is a lot of info, but when I click it in the control panel it does nothing, any idea what it is or does. W98se, IE5.5 Thanks Sue

I believe its updating software. Have you installed any software by Mattel lately?

I believe BDE Administrator is the Borland Database Engine which is a database tool (I think). Where I work, this gets installed whenever we install a Borland product such as (Borland C++, Borland Delphi, etc.). Those are programming tools, so if you installed a Borland programming tool, that's probably where it came from. If you did not, then I haven't got a clue as to where it came from.

Would anybody that is running W98se check their Control Panel and see if they have this, if not I'm going to delete it, I may have downloaded something in the past but not using it, its very confusing. Thanks Sue

It comes from Learning Company and Brøderbund software,owned by Mattel Interactive. Here is some info I found on the web---- "I spent 3 hours tracking a router killer recently," wrote one reader. "Broderbund's DSSagent.exe, described in properties as a Broadcast Background Agent, was the culprit. It got installed with a kid's game in our environment. It gets added to Startup and then periodically calls the Internet (and wakes up the ISDN router), then tries to hit an IP address that we can't ping. Broderbund support says this is a monitor for new updates to its game; they don't say why they chose to add this to Startup." A Mattel Interactive representative confirmed that DSSAgent, which the company calls Brodcast, was in most Broderbund and Learning Company titles until April, when it was removed. "We included the product to offer value add, such as informing [users] about a new product they might like," says the representative. "We didn't feel it violated any privacy law issues, but in good faith we decided to remove it." This attitude is reflected at the site where Mattel has posted its Brodcast removal utility (see www.mattelsupport.com/broadcastpatch.asp). It says, "Mattel Interactive is proud to be in the forefront of the privacy debate by doing its best to protect privacy even in the instances where is it not required by the law." Anyway there is a removal tool for the Brodcast utility. I used it a few weeks ago myself. http://www.mattelsupport.com/brodcastpatch.asp Here is another download site for this removal utility. http://updates.zdnet.com/products/pr_13685.htm http://www.mattel.com/home/

A simple way to tell which it is is to look for BDE*.cpl on your hard drive. Then right click it and go to properties. Under the Version tab, it should tell you if it is the Borland one.

Hi..did you ever get a clear answer on the Borland BDE administrator file..i have been wanting to remove it too but don't know what it is ?