SimpleTap removal... remnants

[sarbin]

'evening.

i'm in the process of debloating a factory image on an x220. i ran the SimpleTap uninstall from "Programs and Features". now, though, i've got a zombie in the Control Panel that does nothing but throw an error whenclicked. also right-clicking the taskbar and selecting "Toolbars" from the menu shows that SimpleTap is still there. enabling it, brings the icon/toolbar back, and clicking the button it brings up msg center of all things. msg center is on the kill list, too.just not done yet.

i'd like to get rid of these zombies by removing registry references to anything SimpleTap. is there any other way?

tia!

[RedEd12 Support Specialist - Retired]

Hi sarbin, fancy seeing you here

This may seem like a stupid question, but is Simpletap still in Programs and Features? I'm wondering if because perhaps it was still running that it didn't uninstall completely. If I can get my hands on a x220 I'll try to uninstall it and see if I encounter the same problem.

Cheers!

Ed

[someotherguy]

The toolbar is common to SimpleTap, Message Center Plus, and Lenovo Solution Center.  Uninstall all 3 applications to make the toolbar go away.

[sarbin]

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RedEd12 wrote:

Hi sarbin, fancy seeing you here

This may seem like a stupid question, but is Simpletap still in Programs and Features? I'm wondering if because perhaps it was still running that it didn't uninstall completely. If I can get my hands on a x220 I'll try to uninstall it and see if I encounter the same problem.

Cheers!

Ed

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howdy!

nope. not listed in P&F. the uninstall took care of that. what's perplexing me is that it left a phantom named "Lenovo's SimpleTap" in my control panel. double-clicking it gives the expected "Application not found". i've experienced these in the past and the only way to kill 'em is by registry edits or a tool like ccleaner that does basically the same.

anyway... i'll be interested to see how it turns out for you, if you get a hold of an x220 to experiment on.

thanks!

[sarbin]

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someotherguy wrote:

The toolbar is common to SimpleTap, Message Center Plus, and Lenovo Solution Center.  Uninstall all 3 applications to make the toolbar go away.

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thanks for the info!

at least that explains why i see msg ctr pop up when i re-enable the toolbar and clicked the button. odd, though, that after uninstalling SimpleTap, that the toolbar is still named "SimpleTap" in the pop-up following a taskbar right-click and selecting "Toolbars".

i'd planned to uninstall msg ctr, but LCS is new to me so i'll reserve judgement 'til i learn more.

thanks!

[RedEd12 Support Specialist - Retired]

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someotherguy wrote:

The toolbar is common to SimpleTap, Message Center Plus, and Lenovo Solution Center.  Uninstall all 3 applications to make the toolbar go away.

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This is excellent information to know for future questions, thank you!

[sarbin]

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sarbin wrote:

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someotherguy wrote:

The toolbar is common to SimpleTap, Message Center Plus, and Lenovo Solution Center.  Uninstall all 3 applications to make the toolbar go away.

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thanks for the info!

at least that explains why i see msg ctr pop up when i re-enable the toolbar and clicked the button. odd, though, that after uninstalling SimpleTap, that the toolbar is still named "SimpleTap" in the pop-up following a taskbar right-click and selecting "Toolbars".

i'd planned to uninstall msg ctr, but LCS is new to me so i'll reserve judgement 'til i learn more.

thanks!

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quick update...

i uninstalled message center and solution center. now, the toolbar is a do-nothing zombie. probably going to have to resort to registry edits to kill them off. seems like the simpletap uninstaller could use some tightening up...

cheers.

[someotherguy]

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sarbin wrote:

quick update...

i uninstalled message center and solution center. now, the toolbar is a do-nothing zombie. probably going to have to resort to registry edits to kill them off. seems like the simpletap uninstaller could use some tightening up...

cheers.

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That definitely sounds like a bug.  Search in the "c:\swtools" folder for something like "deskband" or "simpletap deskband" and then delete it.  I don't have a system in front of me right now, so if you can't figure it out let me know and I can give you more exact instructions next week...

[sarbin]

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someotherguy wrote:

That definitely sounds like a bug.  Search in the "c:\swtools" folder for something like "deskband" or "simpletap deskband" and then delete it.  I don't have a system in front of me right now, so if you can't figure it out let me know and I can give you more exact instructions next week...

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thanks for the idea. no joy, though. no files containing "deskband" in the swtools directory tree. i'm going to expand the search, so we'll see.

[sarbin]

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someotherguy wrote:

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sarbin wrote:

quick update...

i uninstalled message center and solution center. now, the toolbar is a do-nothing zombie. probably going to have to resort to registry edits to kill them off. seems like the simpletap uninstaller could use some tightening up...

cheers.

---

That definitely sounds like a bug.  Search in the "c:\swtools" folder for something like "deskband" or "simpletap deskband" and then delete it.  I don't have a system in front of me right now, so if you can't figure it out let me know and I can give you more exact instructions next week...

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ok... i searched and searched and found no files named "*deskband*.*" anywhere.

interestingly, though, i found registry references to: C:\SWTOOLS\SimpleTap DeskBand\DeskBand64.dll in:

hkey_classes_root\clsid and hkey_local_machine\software (4 total), but haven't deleted anything yet. to be clear, there is no simpletap subdir in my swtools folder. there is a readyapps subdir that contains simpletap, which in turn contains the setup files.

there are also a number of additional simpletap references in the registry, at least one of which is bound to be the zombie control panel.

i'll be interested to hear what you find on your system.

thanks.