Tim923 said:
My mom installed an XP version of Kodak Easy Share. It was uninstalled.
Now the CD player doesn't play CDs, although the CD spins OK. The virusscan
program, Kapersky keeps saying it is turned off and needs to be put back on.
She called Kapersky, and said the problem is with Windows and not at
Kapersky's end. Is there a way to completely uninstall this beast? tim
Does the computer have System Restore ?
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/help/videos/fixing-a-problem-using-system-restore
That is most effective, if the damage event was relatively recent. If all
the above happened a year ago, then SR isn't a good option.
System Restore doesn't work exactly the same way on all versions of Windows.
If you have any concerns about what it might do, it pays to review the
details via a web article first. On my WinXP computer, I have to be
careful, because System Restore has been known to remove things from
a separately maintained Downloads folder I have. I don't think the
Windows 7 one is quite as nasty in that regard (I haven't had to use it
yet). You can also undo System Restore, and return to the current date.
If you do System Restore while in Safe Mode, then you may not have an
Undo option later. But in regular Windows operating mode, you should be
able to Undo it if needed.
*******
Another approach you can use, is use the Fixit thing.
http://support.microsoft.com/mats/cd_dvd_drive_problems/
An explanation of what gets broken, is here. The search terms are "UpperFilter"
or "LowerFilter". When a program wants to add CD burning capability, sometimes
it fools around with the protocol stack for the optical drive. It installs
a "shim", and the shims are referred to as filter drivers. When you uninstall
a program that was attempting to provide CD or DVD burning functions
(maybe the Kodak program allows you to put a photo album on a CD), the
Filter entries can get damaged, and that can be the reason for the issue.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929461
If you look in the Registry, there are many versions of UpperFilter
entries in there. They should not be deleted with complete abandon, because
if you delete a particular one, it kills your keyboard :-( That makes it
rather difficult to repair the computer afterwards. The Microsoft Fixit
should only be working on a particular GUID instance of Filter entries.
The GUID is that honking big number on the previous web page.
{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
*******
Before doing anything else, you should make a backup. Any time I'm
doing stuff like this on my home computers, I make a backup first, to
protect me against the side effects I don't know about. That way, if
I get in trouble (i.e. delete that keyboard entry), having a "bare
metal" restore capability from a backup, is a lifesaver. This is
particularly important, when working on someone else's computer.
You don't want to make things worse than they already are.
I back up my complete C drive. I use a sector by sector based method,
so *nothing* gets lost. But other methods are equally effective.
An external USB hard drive, is one place to be storing the backups.
You should always have one on hand, before starting any computer
maintenance project.
HTH,
Paul
