How do I uninstall Yahoo Messenger?

Or search for the rest of the files using the search function and delete them one at a time there and also delete Yahoo registry entries maybe.

I have a problem. No matter how many times I uninstall and reinstall from scratch, I always have a slight problem when shutting down my computer and the Yahoo program not shutting itself down. Instead, it will always say “YahooMessenger.exe is not responding”. or something. This has to be a problem with the file itself. Maybe the YahooMessenger.exe on their website became a little corrupted? This forces me to have to manually exit (remove from RAM memory) the Yahoo program each time before I shut down.

No, Win XP. I can just exit Yahoo by right clicking the program in the system tray. Also, one other flaw is sometimes when you click on Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Messenger will freeze for about 30 sec and then go to it and also when I try to open a word doc, sometimes I have to exit Yahoo messenger for MS Word to open. It never did that earlier this year. It can’t be a worm since the worm would probably be deleted after a complete uninstall and redownload and also my Norton detects nothing and I do update it quite a bit with new defs. My Hijackthis seems to not be out of the ordinary either when I look for spyware. I see nothing harmful in it since I last deleted some junk program remnants (adware) from it and deleted some unimportant search assistants and a few browser buttons I never use.

I tried Clamwin, which is free and I have read others saying it works good, but you have to be weary if it is freeware. Still haven’t detected anything. I was reading about registry cleaner, but heard they will not make your performance much better unless you use something from the Win9x era. WinXP has a more efficient registry or something and isn’t really effected from registry bloating. But it seems risky and some of them out there might be a trap. I tried a couple but couldn’t fix it since it says you need to buy it after I scanned (so I uninstalled it) and also the free version said something odd when I tried to uninstall in add/remove programs, having a dialog box popping up talking about deleting a file from my Win32 folder or something (registry mechanic 8.0). So I got scared and uninstalled by deleting the folder then removed the entry in add/remove programs. That way, I wouldn’t risk the program being malicious and trying to delete critical system files. I better search for and delete registry entries of that bad program and also use a spyware program to make sure it is gone. Also, I heard it can be unsafe (risk it deleting vital entries) and I was better off using the safer page defrag program. I could use check disk later too to hopefully help. If I still don’t detect anything, I will try another AVG.

I found the problem of the slowdown, even though I didn’t know it would contribute to slowing my system down. The problem is I usually keep my flash drive (for USB) connected to my system at all times. I removed it and now I notice that it is not locking up when I click a button like “start” in Windows.

Also, the AVG only seemed to cause more slowdown. I completely removed it and manually removed what I think to be junk in my registry. If I wasn’t sure of what was junk in my registry, I usually typed in the entry in google and searched it.

I have had Norton all along, but was told it wouldn’t catch everything. AVG was freeware and if it is freeware, it isn’t very good and can slow down the system. If it is free, there is always something hidden about it that is a big disadvantage. Could be a free trial with very few features unless you buy it or it could be bundled with spyware or other viruses. I trust Nortan and Macfee the most. Not freeware.

Seems more of something is with conflict with another. You got any skinning programs like Windowblinds installed? There had been numerous cases of Y!M conflicting with these skinning softwares, normally causing Windows to crash.

Try the stand-alone free scanner from Trend Micro, Sysclean. All you need to do is download the program and the latest definition files from Trend Micro, and see if something is lurking in your system which other AV’s can’t detect. But of course, this is of no guarantee. Best is to get Nod32 or Kaspersky, but there is no harm in trying this free software as a good alternative in testing your system.