Sweetpacks

[Blinkin]

Hi Gang.

I've been trying to get rid of this thing for months, and I'm hoping that someone can tell me how to do it.

I have two sweetpack toolbars in my add-on's that keep enabling themselves, and this both slows down my Internet explorer to the point that it takes MINUTES to load and show websites sometimes, and will even lock up the computer. When I disable them, everything works great... until they re-enable themselves.

I've tried to uninstall it from my add/remove programs, it won't uninstall and actually opens up a new add/remove window that "isn't" there for my screen reader, but I can read it with some keystrokes.

The "Remove" in the add-on's area either isn't there, or is grayed out so I don't see it, so can't remove them there.

I've tried to delete the Sweetpacks folder from my Program Files, but I get an error that one of the files is protected or something and cannot delete it.

For references, I'm using the very out of date Windows XP O/S and Internet Explorer 8. I cannot upgrade or update the O/S, nor can I do anything about upgrading IE. I'm stuck with what I have.

So, anyone have any ideas? The file that is protected is a .dll file, if that helps. This thing is slowing my system and IE way, way, way down, but I just cannnot get rid of it. I'm reluctant to use the uninstall option offered by Sweetpacks, as they were the ones to put the thing on my system to begin with when I installed AVG... so, HELP?

[jaybee55]

Sweetpacks is a nasty piece of work.  One of my kids installed it by accident (it came in piggy-backed on a hacked installer for some other software).

I took the weed-whacker to it (my way of saying that I tried the usual things to get rid of it) but to no avail.

Eventually I killed it using these instructions: http://malwaretips.com/blogs/remove-sweetpacks-toolbar/

[Blinkin]

Sadly, I tried that link some time ago, and as noted above, I couldn't uninstall it from the add/remove programs window.  A reset of IE still had the sweetpacks toolbars in the add-on's and list of toolbars since I couldn't uninstall it from the add/remove programs. *sighs*

Any other ideas?

[jaybee55]

Sadly, I tried that link some time ago, and as noted above, I couldn't uninstall it from the add/remove programs window.  A reset of IE still had the sweetpacks toolbars in the add-on's and list of toolbars since I couldn't uninstall it from the add/remove programs. *sighs*

Any other ideas?

If you can't uninstall it I'm guessing the account you're using doesn't have admin rights.  Is that possible?  If you do have full admin rights and you still can't uninstall it then you probably have some infection worse than Sweetpacks - in which case an OS reinstall may be in your future.

Have you tried booting into safe mode and then uninstalling?

[Oniya]

If you can't uninstall it I'm guessing the account you're using doesn't have admin rights.  Is that possible?  If you do have full admin rights and you still can't uninstall it then you probably have some infection worse than Sweetpacks - in which case an OS reinstall may be in your future.

Or the dialogue box isn't registering to his screen-reader.

[Blinkin]

I should have full admin function; I've managed to add/remove everything else that I've needed to remove.

AVG, with the latest updates says that the system is clean, so if there's a virus, it's not picking it up.

Getting into safe mode isn't very esy for someone who can't see the indicator on the screen that's time to start pressing the key... it's F6, right? I'm also not sure that my screen reader will function in safe mode... or in the administrator login for that matter. I've never tried it.

There is a driver that is protected in the folder, which may be stopping the uninstall and not letting me delete the folder. I should see if I can find someone with sight to see if anything happens besides what it seems to be doing when I try to uninstall it, that is an option I haven't tried yet....

Having the thing on my system isn't all that bothersom in and of itself, it's just the add-on that keeps enabling itself and slowing down IE and my computer whenever I have IE running. But, it's annoying that I can't get rid of it... I think that I'll see if I can get in touch with my brother and maybe the next time he's on this side of town can stop by and give it a visoal look. There may be something that I'm missing or JAWS isn't reading or even showing.