How do you "delete" items from control panel?

[soup]

& then there is always the win XP install disc. You have the weekend free, right?!?

I am keeping it free as well (LOL).

[blutach]

HijackThis. Tried that?

And folks, I don't think he is trying to uninstall a control panel (CPL file), just some prior loved programs.

Regards

[soup]

Now you see them, now you don't.

[ATTACH]9782[/ATTACH]

But all is not lost I found another good loking tool.

http://www.321download.com/

[blutach]

HJT is a great prog. It even has an online analyser.

You'll get along well with Firey (my fiancee) - she's a Mahjong freak. I prefer sudoku myself

As for Ner0, we'll let that indiscretion pass by.

Regards

[soup]

That's my wife's blutach & boy does it take a lot of juice. My mislead there, they are still in Add/Remove, it is just they do not show up on anything. You are right though, I use HiJack this all the time & the online analyzer. I might have to break down & actually beg Microsoft for help.

Edit: I want to just thank everybody who came to my assistance today. I will find the solution to this problem but I don't think these items are attached to anything therefore they shouldn't do any harm until I do solve it. It has been a great ride though, diving deep in to the registry, trying new programs & trying peoples suggestions. I learnt a few new things today & in the end that's all that matters. So I am still up & still operating but I am not going to spend all my time on this.

BTW blu I couldn't play Mahjong or Sudoko to save my life. I am the total non-gamer in the family (LOL), I think the last game I ever played was Terminator 2 for Super Nintendo & I can't even remember when that was.

[soup]

"Update News"

I found out that these items were indeed attached to something. They have the extension .msi & located in C:\WINDOWS\Installer where I found a whole pile of Maxtor. As I was not able to remove them anyway I deleted everything Maxtor at that location & now when I try to get rid of them, it very kindly tells me two things #1 Delete-cannot delete msi installer, #2 uninstall-path is not there or something. Just thought you should know.

[jamoskeag3]

Soup, i admire your tenacity!

[soup]

I think more than tenacity it just plain ticks me off that I can't remove them. It's my freakin computer!!! (LOL). There is a silver lining though, I am now the expert on all these programs that say they remove anything from Add/Remove but don't even see these items. The one program that might have worked, I couldn't install.

[uufta]

So is it finally out of the Control Panel, or are you stuck with it?? Now I know who to come to for those removal issues.

[soup]

Ghosts Gone

Mission accomplished with msizap. Thanks to all who chipped in, you kept me going after it.

[Steve83]

Maybe we should "sick" you on the Sony rootkit issue!

[soup]

Then I might get my own TV show "Dog (soup) The RootKit Hunter".

Edit: BTW the only tool out of all the ones I tried that would even recognize that these items were in Add/Remove was CCleaner, it couldn't do anything about them but at least it recognized them.

[otrcomm]

check this out:

How to remove an invalid icon in the Control Panel?

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/cpicon.htm

might be helpful!

[soup]

Thanks for the info otrcomm, I got this one done but I bookmarked that link for future reference, appreciated.