There is ONE easy way to block ALL spyware and possibly some worms and virii(provided that they are not highly sophisticated like the ones that can change their names and extentions and exploit Windows flaws)

Under Windows XP Professional (and possibly Windows 2000), that can be done in the Local Policy editor under Software Restriction Policies > Additional Rules section. Add path new path rules by opening the context menu for the key/folder and clicking New Path Rule….

Adding the following will block a lot of what AOL installs that is crap:
C:Program FilesAIMSysfilesC:Program FilesAOD

remember to replace C:Program FilesAIM with the folder/path/directory you are actually installing it to.
(don’t worry, the DLLs within Sysfiles will run, unless you choose All Software Files for Enforement)

Optionally, you might also want to create an empty text file and save it in your “Program Files” folder under the names: “Viewpoint”, “WildTangent”, “AOD”, (without extentions) to prevent them from being written to your disk in the first place. Be sure to delete existing folders/directories that match those names first, then mark the replacement files as “Read-Only”. Under Windows 2000 and XP Professional, you might also want to deny all rights to those files for EVERYONE, thus effectively preventing anything from replacing those files EVER.

The above two tricks can be reused to apply to many other unwanted software/files.

I’d also be glad if anyone could analyze AIM’s installation procedure. I ran AIM Install and Task Manager simutaneously, and I DID NOT like what I saw under the processes tab… This mysterious files known as “Patcher.exe”, and some random TMP files were being run. (Not just one, but many.) What these processes do I’ll never know. (not yet anyway.) After the installation, I could not find any traces of Patcher.exe. (I could find it under Windows 98 though) Those things run during the long pause after imghlp.dll (or something like that) has been copied to Sysfiles.

I have added “*.tmp” and “Patcher.exe” to my restricted list, but I haven’t tested it yet (nor do I know any of its side-effects.)