Realtek Wireless LAN Driver and Utility, v1.00.0281 - Can't uninstall, runs at startup, can't find from where.

[britechguy]

Long ago, and oh so far away, at least as memory goes, I installed this software when I got a USB WiFi adapter that I long ago stopped using. Today I finally decided to nuke the program, well, lo and behold, I can't! Below is a screen shot of the program, along with an overlay of its system tray icon and the dialog box that comes up when I attempt to uninstall:



This thing always starts with Windows, and I can use its Quit option, but there is nowhere I can find to stop it from starting with Windows as far as its own settings.

I have looked in:
1. Settings, Apps, Startup
2. Task Manager, Startup Tab
3. The classic startup folder
and I can find no trace of the thing. It definitely has a folder, C:\Program Files (x86)\Realtek\USB Wireless LAN Utility, which I could just nuke, but I want to be certain to be rid of whatever it is that's kicking this off before I'd do that.

This is a first for me in that I can't find the source of the startup. Any ideas and guidance?

 

[seashore]

Autoruns may help.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Revo to the rescue! https://www.revouninstaller.com/products/revo-uninstaller-free/

Pro version in my toolkit, it's essential.

 

[phaZed]

Autoruns for sure... https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autoruns

 

[britechguy]

Thanks for the recommendations. I had forgotten about Autoruns entirely, and I think that's now taken care of the startup with Windows. Two registry key entries under Current Control Set for two separate utilities in the previously mentioned folder

If I can't use the regular uninstaller after restarting, Revo will be the next step.

I just really wanted to know where in the H*LL this darned thing was starting up from!