USB hard drive and a fooked PC

[daviejones]

Guys, a techy question for you.

My uncle has just bought a Lacie Little Disk (320GB USB). his PC was working ok, he plugged the disk in and it came up with a box asking if he wanted to install the 1-click-backup software.

He did this, apparently it went through with no errors.

The problem now is that he has no icons on his screen. Every time he goes to click on anything, or open a link in IE, it brings up an MS Installer dialogue box and just sits there. Before you can do anything you have to cancel and that can take a couple of mins.

I thought it may be profile related so talked him through creating a new account, but still the same. I have checked the All users profile, unistalled the software, deleted all files I can find on the PC, deleted all Lacie entries from registry and still the same.

I have tried the system restore and still the same. I have also checked the Run and RunOnce keys in the registry and there is nothing in there.

What have I missed? the only thing now I can think of is trying to uninstall MS Installer and seeing if it forces me to reinstall. I can not find out what it is that is calling this MS Installer and do not understand why it has fooked up the profiles.....

Cheers guys...

[KevinS]

Does he have System Restore enabled? If so, restore to the point before he installed the software.

[oracleslave]

I have tried the system restore and still the same.

Does he have System Restore enabled? If so, restore to the point before he installed the software.

[KevinS]

Doh!! No coffee, is what I blame that on!!

[pmeswani]

Guys, a techy question for you.

My uncle has just bought a Lacie Little Disk (320GB USB). his PC was working ok, he plugged the disk in and it came up with a box asking if he wanted to install the 1-click-backup software.

He did this, apparently it went through with no errors.

The problem now is that he has no icons on his screen. Every time he goes to click on anything, or open a link in IE, it brings up an MS Installer dialogue box and just sits there. Before you can do anything you have to cancel and that can take a couple of mins.

I thought it may be profile related so talked him through creating a new account, but still the same. I have checked the All users profile, unistalled the software, deleted all files I can find on the PC, deleted all Lacie entries from registry and still the same.

I have tried the system restore and still the same. I have also checked the Run and RunOnce keys in the registry and there is nothing in there.

What have I missed? the only thing now I can think of is trying to uninstall MS Installer and seeing if it forces me to reinstall. I can not find out what it is that is calling this MS Installer and do not understand why it has fooked up the profiles.....

Cheers guys...

Have a look at Event Viewer and find what application is trying to install. Locate it and then move it to a temporary directory and see if it fixes the problem. If necessary, remove the backup software that is installed (if still exists after doing the system restore). For some reason, Windows automatically installs software that resides in a certain directory and doesn't have anything to do with the startup folders or the registery keys.

[daviejones]

Have a look at Event Viewer and find what application is trying to install. Locate it and then move it to a temporary directory and see if it fixes the problem. If necessary, remove the backup software that is installed (if still exists after doing the system restore). For some reason, Windows automatically installs software that resides in a certain directory and doesn't have anything to do with the startup folders or the registery keys.

Could see no real use in the event viewer. Nothing of any help in there.
removed all the software, deleted files, deleted reg keys. No change.

I am a bit confused why it has removed all the icons from the desktop and from the default and all users profiles however.....

[pmeswani]

Could see no real use in the event viewer. Nothing of any help in there.
removed all the software, deleted files, deleted reg keys. No change.

I am a bit confused why it has removed all the icons from the desktop and from the default and all users profiles however.....

I can't answer the second part. But the Event Viewer should show install attempts of this particular software. To be honest, it may be quicker to backup the data and rebuild the comp. from scratch.