Readme - ViewpointKiller

Fixed an issue with ViewpointKiller not removing a Viewpoint folder located in Documents and Settings\%userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Viewpoint. (XP only)

Made some instructions for removing Viewpoint Media Player\Manager\Toolbar more clear.

Patched temp file cleaning function.

1.16 final: September 10, 2006

Fixed a slight issue with ViewpointKiller reporting that Viewpoint was not installed when it actually was.

Updated for AIM Triton 1.2.80.1, 1.2.83.1, 1.3.16.1, 1.3.30.1

Tiny change in removal function.

Fixed a small issue with renaming (see below).

Fixed some misc. stuff.

Moved buttons to be even with text, fattened them up. (=P)

The zip file will be named "ViewpointKiller.zip" from now on.

Fixed (I hope) an unacceptable flaw in ViewpointKiller's design: It always reported back that the operation was "Done!", regardless if ViewpointKiller had actually removed Viewpoint. (Thanks to Don for pointing this out)

Added function that lets you select a seemingly irremovable file for Windows to remove on the next re-boot. (Only works on 2k and XP right now)

I realized how useless the update feature was, removed that.

Made it more clear on the info text what pressing the Start button does.

Changed icon yet again... (Thanks Sane)

(finally) Fixed the icon problem with the icon not showing up in the title bar if the .ico file was not in the same directory as ViewpointKiller

Added credits in about box.

Patched ViewpointKiller to remove a small registry entry that I missed. (Thanks Jon8RFC)

(finally) ViewpointKiller can now find and remove Viewpoint files and folders in a %userprofile% folder.

ViewpointKiller will now report what folders it did and did not find.

Added "Nuke Registry Entries" feature to ViewpointKiller, fixing a small flaw in the program's design.

Lots of registry entries for ViewpointKiller to remove have been added. See this thread for more details. (Thanks Jedi)

1.14 beta: June 9, 2006

(finally) Fixed drive "issue". ViewpointKiller can now be run from anywhere on your hard drive. If this does not work for some reason, putting ViewpointKiller in your main hard drive folder and running it will work.

Patched this: (Sometimes)You must have had to re-booted your pc after you installed Viewpoint Toolbar for one file to be totally deleted. (I did that by having VK rename ViewpointPhotosShellExt.dll to KillMe.dll)

Updated for AIM Triton 1.2.71.1

Neatened GUI yet again, buttons are not so ugly-looking now.

Changed link in program because of domain name change.

Added feature that prevents more than one instance of ViewpointKiller from running to prevent problems.

(finally) Temp folder cleaning without a console box popping up.

Minor grammar and spelling corrections.

Added email the author link inside program.

1.12 final: April 2, 2006

Patched for our friends at AOL who kindly named their Program Files folder "Viewpoint Experience Technology" and threw me off. (Thanks to: Rod)

Now should remove all of Viewpoint, regardless of whether or not it snuck some of it's updates on to your pc. (Thanks to: Dennis M. Kiser)

Changed GUI a little more.

Updated for AIM Triton 1.2.1

New double-deletion method for Viewpoint.

1.1 final: March 4, 2006

Added removal of Viewpoint Toolbar.

Updated for AIM Triton.

Added small function.

Added feature that tells you if Viewpoint, Viewpoint Manager or Viewpoint Toolbar is on your system.

Found yet another Viewpoint Manager registry key, killed it.

I found the "Strip Executable" option in Dev-C++. ViewpointKiller is all of 13kb.

Discovered that AOL must be closed for VMP to be fully removed. Added option to close AOL.

Added option to close Internet Explorer.

1.07 final: January 13, 2006
Many changes:

Changed GUI a little: added update button, prevent resizing

Made .exe a lot smaller (with UPX Compression Technology)

Added "Do all Killings" function.

Discovered more Viewpoint registry keys; killed those: now you don't see the remains of Viewpoint Media Player or Viewpoint Manager uninstaller in Control Panel.

Discovered that "aolsoftware.exe" doesn't close fully after using AIM Triton! Had to make the Killer close it forcefully but nicely.

Found a way to remove "Viewpoint" Application Data folder.

Changed place where VK is supposed to run from, now it is the main hard drive folder. "C:\", "D:\", etc.

Exceedingly more stable code. (Thank you to: grumpy, The Dark)

1.05 final: December 9, 2005

Program completely removes Viewpoint Manager now.

Added some buttons to GUI, made window bigger, disabled the maximize button.

1.00 final: November 21, 2005

ViewpointKiller now askes if it can close AIM before the program attempts to kill Viewpoint.

Added a feature that cleans up after an un-installation of Viewpoint Manager.

More stable programming. Changed some MessageBox()'s up.

1.00 beta(s) 1 - 3: October 20, 2005 - November 9, 2005
First release:

Updated for Viewpoint Media Player 3.3.

Changed ViewpointKiller to where it has to be in the Program Files folder to work. This fixed the drive problem.

Added a clean temp files option.

ViewpointKiller now uninstalls Viewpoint Media Player quietly, and then continues with the killing.

Changed the icon because it was getting really stupid looking.

Continued with the update for Viewpoint Media Player 3.3.

ViewpointKiller now kills the "MetaStream" folder in your "Program Files" folder.

Changed the Killer to where it now kills the whole "Viewpoint" folder.

Got rid of the quiet uninstallation because I do a better job than Viewpoint to kill that program.

Discovered more Viewpoint registry keys; killed those.

Discovered VMP plugins for Mozilla Firefox; killed those.

Thanks to...

You, for downloading this program. I hope I can or did help you out.
Jesse Liberty, who wrote SAMS Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days.
Charles Petzold, who wrote Programming Windows, which has helped me a lot with development.
The good folks at Bloodshed.net for writing Dev-C++, which I use to compile my .c files.
The good folks at Programming Forums for helping me with some code.
The good folks at Planet Source Code for writing code that works.
The good folks at UPX for making the best compressor ever! (I should have mentioned something about them a long time ago, my apologies for not doing so sooner)
For programming advice: David Mills (a.k.a DaWei), Peter (a.k.a The Dark), Robert Moerland, Robert (a.k.a. grumpy), Ruben (a.k.a nnxion), and Marcin Kleczynski (a.k.a Rubber Ducky).
For bug reports: Rod, James Higginbotham, and Marcelo
For alpha testing: Shane (a.k.a. Linger) and Skyler (a.k.a Skillet)
For the new icon design (version 1.16 final): Aaron Volker (a.k.a. Sane)
For help with detection: Jedi, Michelle Yeung (a.k.a. MichelleY), and Chaslang.

http://prm753.bchea.org/
Email: prprogramsstudios [at] gmail [dot] com
Paul "Prm753" McLain.
Over 300,000 downloads as of November 2007. Thank you!