File/Folder Deletion

[mcdhu]

On carrying out a good spring clean of the family PC while installing a ZoneLab Firewall, I discover a sneaky little folder in the C drive Program Files which calls itself a 'Dialer'. This came to my attention when the Firewall asked me if it was ok for this dialer to access the internet. I naturally declined! On trying to delete this 'thing', it will go as far as the Waste Bin, but refuses to be deleted from there. A window comes up asking me to check that the disk is not full or write protected, or that the program is not in use. How can I, therefore, get rid of this sneaky little chap?

I am running W98 Second Edition, AOL, Norton antivirus and the basic ZoneLab Firewall.

Cheers all,
mcdhu
PS My big boy denies all knowledge! It must have been me!
:uhoh:

[Front_Seat_Dreamer]

mcdhu

Try right clicking on the folder and see if there are attirbutes set on the folder: Read Only, Archive etc. If so remove the ticks then try to delete the folder.

If that doesn't work how do you feel about booting the computer into dos only where you will be able to delete the folder.

I can help if you are unsure how to do this but it can be problematic putting info like that up here.

See This Article (http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/DialerActiveX.html) which has removal instructions.

As is mentioned in the article above you should download Ad-Aware (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/) from here so you can rid yourself of any other nuisance bits of software.

[timmcat]

Ooooh, the cause behind many a catastrophic phone bill.

Download and run Spybot (http://security.kolla.de/index.php?lang=en&page=download), gets rid of diallers and all sorts of other nasties.

[Ausatco]

As an aside, I've found that my FTP client, CuteFTP, is very good for deleting files on the local drive that won't delete. You can readily change attributes and it seems to cut through the BS that some programs/pests use to prevent normal deletion.

If you have an FTP client of any flavour it might be worth a try.

AA

[mcdhu]

Thank you all for your helpful and interesting replies. A 'fiddle' with the ticks in the properties box enabled me to delete said programs. I'll try the downloads mentioned idc.

Cheers,
mcdhu

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

mcdhu,

Did you ever figure out what program was accessing the folder? (I am just wondering if it would not be time for a fresh install of Win98SE.)

Take Care,

Richard

[Mac the Knife]

Are you sure that this isn't the innocuous Phone Dialer [DIALER.EXE - 67.3KB] included with Win9x?

I used it a lot at one time. Although it is restricted to 10 speed-dial numbers it can be hacked to produce different versions. Here's how - dialer.exe looks for dialer.ini in it's own folder for it's list of numbers. Copy dialer.exe to dialfamily.exe and open dialfamily.exe with a hex editor. Find the string dialer.ini and change it to dialfa.ini (or whatever you like, just keep the same number of characters). Now you have two different versions of dialer that you can use independently.

Ah, the joys of hacking....