Phantom Uninstaller
 

I have installed Limewire twice now, and within a day or so, it mysteriously seems to uninstall itself. It disappears from my desktop, and Add/Remove Programs inside of Control Panel doesn't even seem to know it ever existed. Help!

Pastor Ray

Well this is the Phex forums. So you're using Phex are you? It's a great program try it out!

Your LW is probably disappearing due to a spyware program. Most likely cause. Put LW on its exception list or get a decent spyware utility. LW does not have spyware but some utilities are poorly designed & think it does.
And you should never use the Add/Remove control panel to uninstall LW. That's not how you installed it was it. Only use Start menu > Programs > LW > Uninstall

Thanks for the insight. What can I use to stop the spyware program? I run on Time Warner's cable modem, and have a firewall and Computer Associates eTrust EZ AntiVirus running at all times. How in the world is a spyware program getting by all that? And, oh yeah, Limewire calmly uninstalled itself again! I spent 30 years in the computer industry, and I've never seen anything like this before. It's a good thing that I don't need Limewire all that bad, because reinstalling it constantly is a pain in the neck. Thanks again for the info. If you run into any other insights, let me know.

Pastor Ray

Did you try using ad-aware?
http://www.google.com/search?q=adawa...UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Or might your anti-virus-software remove LimeWire?
Please check your antivirus programs configuration.

Besides: If you run Windows, you are in danger of spyware whatever you do. Antivirus programs do help, but they are no guarantee, that your Windows won't ever be infected.

Besides again: You stumbled into the Phex Forum with your question, which also is a Gnutella p2p Program, but isn't LimeWire.

Maybe that had a reason, and you should give Phex a try...

Have a nice day :)

Unless i'm mistaken, I recall reading some time back that Computer Associates eTrust EZ adopted PestPatrol as a part of their security package. Whilst it may normally be a reasonable spyware catcher, it sees p2p programs as having spyware even when they don't. That's lazy programming. So you have the option of putting LimeWire on its exception list, or disabling/removing PP & instead using arne_bab's suggestion of Ad-aware or Spybot - Search & Destroy (both are FREE). But yes, PestPatrol will be the guilty one for removing LimeWire.

Remember, you can also try out Phex since this is where you posted. But I'll move your thread to the LimeWire section.