Full Disclosure: Spam--It's Not Just for In-Boxes Anymore

Watch out: Slimy new invaders are here.

Stephen Manes
February 2004 issue of PC World magazine

Silly me! I once thought that spam was merely a slimy substance usually found clogging in-boxes. Now I realize that a different but sometimes uglier form of this stuff can infect my system--and bog it down--every time I start it up. Yours, too.

Evidence? Click Windows' Start button, click Run, type in msconfig, click OK, and click the Startup tab (unless you're running Windows 95 or 2000, in which case you'll need a third-party start-up manager). Voila! Up pops a list of the programs that run whenever you start your PC.

In XP, the list is truncated both vertically and horizontally, because Microsoft's programming wizards redesigned the window so you can't maximize or even stretch it to see long names. But the bad interface can't obscure the truth: A collection of mysterious programs that aren't in the Startup folder has made its way into your system and, in some cases, onto Windows' system tray. And you thought that you owned your PC and managed its performance and reliability?

Sometimes this sort of thing is fine: It clearly makes sense for your antivirus and firewall programs to load themselves without your intervention. Other unwelcome visitors can be quickly doped out and disabled--like Quicken applets that appear on many new machines even if you never so much as click on the program icons. But what on earth, for instance, is srmclean.exe? And once you find it, what should you do about it?

Google to the rescue: A quick search for that file name turns up a British site with a huge directory of start-up programs. The site reveals that srmclean.exe is a file required for onboard digital audio in some Compaq PCs and says that, according to Compaq, If you disable the entry from loading into startup, then you will not be able to use the features of the sound card. In other words, it's a keeper. But I still haven't been able to construct a Google search for one peculiar start-up item that appears in the list with blank entries for both its short name and its file name. For now, it has to remain a keeper, too, alas.

There are plenty of other items you may not want or need. One type launches pop-ups that remind you to register a program you've just installed. Another detects and connects peripherals like PDAs when you plug them in. Thanks for the seamlessness, but sometimes I'd rather invoke that software myself. It's a rare setup routine that inquires about your start-up preferences, though. Just do it is the wrong motto for making stuff start automatically. The right one: Just ask me.

I don't recall receiving a choice from Musicmatch or RealNetworks or practically anybody else about adding their program to my system tray. Companies have figured out that while the Windows desktop is almost invisible to most people, the tray still offers precious corporate visibility--and users be damned.

Not that they care, but vendors ought to be far more circumspect about spamming our PCs' Registry and system tray without our permission. And while they're at it, could they employ names that we poor users have a chance of understanding?

Adobe Gamma Loader in Msconfig's Startup list tells me all I need to know about that particular file. But ezSP_Px.exe? Go gently with that delete key, reader. Careful Googling will reveal that enigmatic and apparently worthless file to be something you might want to keep.

Click here for more Full Disclosure columns by Contributing Editor Stephen Manes. He has been writing about technology for more than two decades.
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