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#21
As you realize, simply deleting shortcuts from the taskbar does not actually prevent the software from running if it's been auto-launched at boot time. Only actually uninstalling the program (if you feel confident that it's unnecessary) will actually remove it for good.
Or, if you mean icons running in the system tray notification area (rather than "taskbar" as you've said), generally you can right-click on those items and there will be a CLOSE or EXIT item on the context menu. This allows you to terminate these services of programs even though they were auto-launched. Similar to un-checking them in MSCONFIG -> Startup tab to prevent them from auto-launching at boot time, but after-the-fact even though they're now running.
Or, an alternative is to look at MSCONFIG, startup tab, to see what's getting auto-launched at boot time. You can un-check those boxes as a way to prevent auto-launch of unnecessary unwanted software, while still retaining it as installed, if you want to maybe someday run it again. This is instead of truly uninstalling it permanently.
That's what I'm suggesting... DISABLE the wireless mode if you can (by a slide switch on the laptop, if present), and plug an ethernet cable into the RJ45 connector on the laptop and run it to the router... to run the computer in wired mode, to see what happens.HP wireless assistant has this combo thingy wireless LAN adapter and wireless WAN adapter both enabled and running and when the computer comes on it says combo is on or connected something along those lines. Maybe there is a way to safetly disable what I don't need and see if it helps? Any suggestions?
If you have no such "wireless radio -> OFF" switch in the hardware, you can still just plug the ethernet cable in to get the wired connection working. That should work regardless.
Then you can DISABLE your wireless connection (if it's also running and ENABLED, i.e. both wired and wireless are active... which we're trying to defeat for this experiment) by going to Search -> Network connections, and then select the active wireless connection (if it's shown as "enabled"), right-click on it, and select the DISABLE item from the context menu. This will force the wireless connection to stop via software, even if you can't disable it via hardware.
Or, if you see the wireless network connectoid icon in the system tray, you can click on it and select DISCONNECT. That's yet another way to terminate the wireless connection even after it's been started.
So one way or another now you should be running purely with the wired network adapter (which would also show as ENABLED in that Network Connections dialog), and none of that wireless-related HP or other software will be functional... even if it's seemingly active via icons in the system tray. If the wireless connection has been DISCONNECTED or DISABLED, that's what we're shooting for. Wired-only.
Now... how do things work??