Anti-AOL

Updated 3-10-2009.

There are a few reasons why you won't find an icon for AOL under Add/Remove programs on XP or Vista....

• AOL did not install properly.
• The AOL Uninstaller can't find its own files when you ask it to (sounds unbelievable, but see next item).
• The Add/Remove icon was removed by a partial or aborted uninstall done manually or with a program such as CCleaner or jv16 PowerTools.
• AOL "hung" when you tried to remove it, thanks to an internal process that could not shut down.

Any of the above problems will result in XP or Vista "thinking" AOL has been removed, so the icon for AOL will disappear from your Add/Remove list whether AOL is still installed or not. There is no way to tell exactly why the icon for AOL is not on the list once it is gone, but as I have written in two previous posts (XP | Vista), you can uninstall AOL without it, so there's no need to worry.

Today's email from "RM" touches on this topic.

Hi,

I was just on your great blog trying to remove AOL from my computer. But, I was unsure about some things so wanted to ask you. (Thought it was a bit involved to leave a comment. Hope you don't mind an email.)

First, I am using Windows XP (Ver 2002, Service Pack 3).

I tried to remove AOL from Add or Remove Programs and although AOL is listed - size 68.23MB, when I click on "Remove" it takes awhile and comes back advising there is no AOL files on my computer. But, when I followed your XP advice, on Program Files- there is an icon AmericaOnLine 9.0 and another one AOL Companion.

I know you said to go to Common Files at this point, but double-clicking on AmericaOnLine 9.0 brings up a huge amount of files (there is an uninstall icon in the list). Also double-clicking on AOL Companion brings up several files (no uninstall).

Back to Common Files/AOL/ACS - there are several uninstall icons for ACS.

So, wanted to be sure I was removing the right files. Do I need to remove anything under AmericaOnLine 9.0 and/or AOL Companion. Or, only under ACS and will clicking on uninstall remove all of the ACS files?

Sorry, if this is confusing, but I am a novice and unsure of what to do but know I need to remove some of these programs since I now only have 17% free space on my hard drive and my computer is slowing down a lot.

No need to apologize - those are actually some pretty good questions.

You should always use caution and ask yourself these questions before removing an involved program like AOL, so I admire the fact that you felt you should write to me before you proceed.

1. To answer your first question, you should click on the uninstaller or uninstall icon (the name of it will depend on the exact version of AOL you are using) in your AOL 9.0 folder to remove AOL.

   It's not a bad idea to check the files listed under AOL Companion for an uninstaller, but since you found no uninstaller in that folder, check Task Manager to make sure no process is running for AOL Companion and end the task for the process if it is. You can simply delete the AOL Companion folder once you've removed AOL 9.0.

2. To answer the second part of your first question, you say that I mentioned checking under Common Files for an AOL Uninstaller. That's not necessary unless you have AOL Desktop installed or unless you can't find the AOL uninstaller in the AOL 9.0 program folder.

3. To answer your second question, you're right - there are multiple uninstallers for ACS (the America Online Connectivity Service) but the only one you need to concern yourself with is the one you will find under C:\Program Files\Common Files\AOL\ACS, named uninst.exe. There will be some files and folders left over after you shut down and remove ACS but you can delete them once you've removed AOL 9.0.

Update, 11-21-08: "RM" wrote again to say: "Thanks a lot, Marah. I believe I was able to remove all traces of AOL. (I say "I believe", because it appeared in so many places - amazing.) Anyway, I followed your instructions and was able to uninstall and remove AOL and ACS."

Last updated 3-11-09.

Issue: You want to remove AOL, but you're missing the AOL Uninstaller.

Solution: Remove AOL without it.

Difficulty Level: Easy

So you want to remove AOL from your Windows PC but when you check Add/Remove programs you're missing the AOL Uninstaller (or the entry for "AOL Choose Which Version to Remove").

What to do? This is one of the most frequently asked questions about removing AOL. What follows is a pretty simple way to remove AOL that doesn't harm your computer. Whether you're a tech who's looking for the easiest way to get AOL off of your customer's computers, or a beginner who can't get AOL off of your PC, this page is for you.

I tested this method on AOL 9.0 SE, AOL 9.0 Optimized, AOL 9.0 VR, AOL 9.1 GM (the first public release of 9.1), AOL 9.1, and AOL Desktop on both Windows XP and Windows Vista. This method works well on both operating systems. See this tutorial if you're an XP user.

Before we get started, visit this page to learn how to back up your registry, files, and folders.

Issues for AOL users running Vista and Windows 7: I've had email that some PCs are infected by viruses when removing AOL, so run a scan with the free online Trend Micro tool before you get started.

The first thing you'll need to do is shut the AOL Connectivity Service down.

1. Shut the AOL Connectivity Service down (works on Windows XP and Windows Vista/Windows 7)...

Click Start, right-click My Computer, and click Manage.

The Computer Management window will open. Click Services and Applications at the end of the list you'll see on the left hand side, then double-click on the word Services.

Find the AOL Connectivity Service on the Services list on the top right hand side of the window. Right-click and choose Properties, then click Startup Type Disabled, click Apply, then click Service Status Stopped and click OK. Now the AOL Connectivity Service is disabled.

All you need to do now is uninstall the copies of AOL you don't want, delete the leftover AOL files on your computer, and (optionally) clean up your computer's Registry.

2. To finish removing AOL without the AOL Uninstaller...

Click Start, click My Computer, click Program Files, then click on any AOL folder in your Program Files (such as 9.0, 9.0 VR, 9.1, etc.) to open it. Look for an executable file called the uninstall or the uninstaller (the name of it may depend on which version(s) of AOL you have installed). An easy way to find it is to use the View Option in Explorer to tile the files within the folder, then arrange the tiles by group. When you find the uninstaller click on it to uninstall AOL.

Special note for AOL Desktop users: You will not find an uninstaller in the AOL Desktop Program Files. Navigate instead to Program Files, Common Files, aol, then click on the uninstaller file that has AOL's blue icon next to it. Screenshot for AOL Desktop users:

Screenshot for all other AOL software users:

The uninstaller will search for every version of AOL on your computer, then it will ask you which versions you would like to uninstall. Select the copies you want to uninstall by clicking on them. If you don't want the Cabinet and Saved Files, uncheck the boxes next to those choices. When you're done with that, click Next and Uninstall. Since these are very brief instructions, you may feel you need a more thorough guide to this. Use the one here.

The uninstaller will run for a few minutes, then prompt you to restart your computer. It's important to restart your computer so you can finish removing all of AOL's files.

3. To remove leftover AOL files and folders from your computer after uninstalling AOL...

Do an Explorer search for "AOL" (without the quotes) with Advanced Options enabled to get rid of all the leftover junk in your Program and Common Files and in your Temp and Application Data folders.

Special step for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users: Even with UAC disabled, when you try to remove any leftover Program File (not just AOL's) you will often see the message: "You need permission to perform this action. Try again." "Trying again" will not grant you sufficient access to delete the folder. Neither will elevating your privileges or sharing permissions.

My workaround: Say you are trying to delete your AOL 9.0VR folder. Open the folder, then open it's subfolder, then delete the files within the subfolder. Once they're deleted, you can delete the subfolder and the main directory with no problem. My workaround makes no sense at all in theory, but it works, so trust me. Isn't using Windows Vista fun?

Note: My workaround won't work on C:\Program Files\Common Files\AOL unless you're running as a fully-privileged administrator with elevated permissions, or using the hidden "super-administrator" account, but I've got it all under control...check out this new post I wrote that explains how to to delete any file or folder from Vista.

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Optional (leftover registry entries will not harm your computer!): To clean your computer's registry, I recommend you use CCleaner. Download it here, and use these instructions, starting with Step 5, to clean the junk up.

That's it! It's as easy as pie.

Check the FAQs section if you have any questions. See my How-to Section for more ways to get AOL out of your life.

Last updated 3-11-09. May update it again if I ever redo pics I lost years ago for Step 1a.

Issue: You want to remove AOL, but you're missing the AOL Uninstaller.

Solution: Remove AOL without it.

Difficulty Level: Easy

So you want to remove AOL from your Windows PC but when you check Add/Remove programs you're missing the AOL Uninstaller (or the entry for "AOL Choose Which Version to Remove").

What to do? This is one of the most frequently asked questions about removing AOL. What follows is a pretty simple way to remove AOL that doesn't harm your computer. Whether you're a tech who's looking for the easiest way to get AOL off of your customer's computers, or a beginner who can't get AOL off of your PC, this page is for you.

I tested this method on AOL 9.0 SE, AOL 9.0 Optimized, AOL 9.0 VR, AOL 9.1 GM (the first public release of 9.1), AOL 9.1, and AOL Desktop on both Windows XP and Windows Vista. This method works well on both operating systems. See this tutorial if you're a Vista user.

Before we get started, visit this page to learn how to back up your registry, files, and folders.

Issues for AOL users running XP: I've had email that some PCs are infected by viruses when removing AOL, so run a scan with the free online Trend Micro tool before you get started.

The first thing you'll need to do is shut the AOL Connectivity Service down. There are two ways to do this on XP and neither way is hard.

1. The easiest way to shut the AOL Connectivity Service down (works on XP or Vista)...

Click Start, right-click My Computer, and click Manage.

The Computer Management window will open. Click Services and Applications at the end of the list you'll see on the left hand side, then double-click on the word Services.

Find the AOL Connectivity Service on the Services list on the top right hand side of the window. Right-click and choose Properties, then click Startup Type Disabled, click Apply, then click Service Status Stopped and click OK. Now the AOL Connectivity Service is disabled.

All you need to do now is uninstall the copies of AOL you don't want, delete the leftover AOL files on your computer, and (optionally) clean up your computer's Registry.

1a. A second way to shut the AOL Connectivity Service down (works only on XP)...

For this method you'll need to make sure you can view "hidden files and folders" on your computer. To do so on XP, click Start, click My Documents, click Tools, click Folder Options, click the View tab, then click the radio button for Show hidden files and folders.

Optionally, you can also enable the display of hidden operation files by unchecking the box that shows you want to hide them.

Now click Start, click My Computer, click C:\Program Files\Common Files\AOL\ACS, then click the uninst.exe.

This will run the Uninstaller for the AOL Connectivity Service, which will take a minute. When it's done you'll see a dialog box that says, "AOL Connectivity Service has been removed from you computer. Click OK to exit."

Do not restart your PC for any reason until you follow the next steps on this page. Restarting it now may reinstall the Connectivity Service and mess up your PC.

2. To finish removing AOL without the AOL Uninstaller...

Click Start, click My Computer, click Program Files, then click on any AOL folder in your Program Files (such as 9.0, 9.0 VR, 9.1, etc.) to open it.

Look for an executable file called the uninstall or the uninstaller (the name of it may depend on which version(s) of AOL are installed). An easy way to find it is to use the View Option in Explorer to tile the files within the folder, then arrange the tiles by group. When you find the uninstaller click on it to uninstall AOL.

Special note for AOL Desktop users: You will not find an uninstaller in the AOL Desktop Program Files. Navigate instead to Program Files, Common Files, aol, then click on the uninstaller file that has AOL's blue icon next to it. Screen shot for AOL Desktop users:

Screen shot for all other users:

The uninstaller will search for every version of AOL on your computer, then it will ask you which versions you would like to uninstall. Select the copies you want to uninstall by clicking on them. If you don't want the Cabinet and Saved Files, uncheck the boxes next to those choices. When you're done with that, click Next and Uninstall. Since these are very brief instructions, you may feel you need a more thorough guide to this. Use the one here.

The uninstaller will run for a few minutes, then prompt you to restart your computer. It's important to restart your computer so you can finish removing all of AOL's files.

3. To remove leftover AOL files and folders from your computer after uninstalling AOL...

Do an Explorer search for "AOL" (without the quotes) with Advanced Options enabled to get rid of all the leftover junk in your Program and Common Files and in your Temp and Application Data folders.

(Back to Top)

Optional (leftover registry entries will not harm your computer!): To clean your computer's registry, I recommend you use a free one-month trial (no credit card required) of jv16 PowerTools, version 2006 for XP users, or jv16 PowerTools, version 2009 for Vista and Windows 7 users, then use these instructions, starting with Step 4, to clean your computer's Registry. A quicker and easier (but not as thorough) way to clean the Registry is to use CCleaner. Download it here, and use these instructions, starting with Step 5, to clean the junk up.

That's it! It's as easy as pie.

Check the FAQs if you have any questions. See my How-to Section for more ways to get AOL out of your life.