Sorry then. It kind of took me by surprise to see IE 8 pop up. Come to think of it, MS just installed some "AddOn" to Firefox without asking either. That's twice they got me in less than a week. I don't even have Auto Updates or Windows Updates enabled. But I guess if you had somebody write the OS you can bypass all the permissions(so much for all that UAC crap.)
Sorry Shark. I usually don't make assumptions either. Two things happening together can sometimes make it look like the first caused the second. If it's any help afa the uninstall, after getting the message about it must be run as administrator, I closed the utility program, ran it as administrator, and got the same message. I'm using build 7077 so maybe that's a factor.
I know what you mean about the sites. If I try to put my software on some places, they want $250. If I don't want them to put it on, I browse by there one day and all my stuff is up there with half-assed info about what it is.
edit: this is really weird. If I try to run IE I get the "blocked by local security policy" or whatever it is, that I set, and it won't come up. But for some reason it popped up after codec install. In default programs it has 3 checks, like .mht files, and it won't let you uncheck them. But if the exe is blocked it's pretty mysterious how it's loading. Must be yet another "undocumented Windows" feature.
edit2: I suspect what happened is Local Security Policy isn't heavy enough because it's likely the current user. I bet because the IE launch was part of the install it therefore had higher privilege(trusted installer or whatever they call it.) I have to make sure to plug that security hole.
edit3: It appears disabling IE using the Local Security Policy approach is just about useless since any malware you try to install will have Install privileges that trump those of a local user account. Best to follow the procedure on MS site for
removing IE 8
