Zo said:
yes, that's the first thing I tried. I finally used one of the registry backups prior to
installing it and it works fine again.
Tiger may be right, because both Ad-aware and Spybot picked up two new Windows Media
registry entries right after installing it, but removal of these entries shows no ill
effects to ShellGem so far and I did not notice any "call home, etc" attempts prior to
removing these two entries.
Strange, that there is no mentioned of this on any of the sites that I found it on,
including CoMa's and SOS. The only highlight made is that it is the last known "freeware"
version(1.36) before it went third party adware as described on the Woundedmoon site.
It has to be that they have their information wrong. The version I have
archived, it's 1.3 (1999.02.13), and it's included documentation states
it as adware. Naturally it neglects to mention that it is spyware.
I just now ran an install of it (v 1.3). Most everything looks ok, judging
by my Inctrl logs. Normal CLSID entries for the shell extension aspect.
Spybot gives clean report. Kerio's not asking me any questions. On its
interface, no ads -- except for one reserved space, that right now says
"Hace Advertisement."
However. Looking at the Inctrl logs, I see that it might be harboring its
wickedness for my next reboot.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ShellExt\OOC\ShellGEM.exe " RunOnce
"C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ShellExt\OOC\ShellGEM.dll.000"
Either the command "shellgem.exe shellgem.dll.000" only does a rename
to shellgem.dll. Else it does something nasty at that point. The file
shellgem.dll.000 is loaded right now, so it won't let me delete it. I
deleted the shellgem.exe. From quick look, poking a few shellgem actions,
it didn't seem to affect it.
Opening the shellgem.dll.000 for view in resource viewer, there is a
notable item. On the Export section, exported DLLs, it says: SEX.DLL.
Sure doesn't look too benign, that.
Had I known this, I certainly would not have recommended it to anyone.
Oh, definitely, that would be dramatically opposite your posting history.
If intentional, I'd figure your nym got hijacked.
Our natural question from here is what freeware offers the features of
FastFolders or ShellGem. I'd have to reread the thread, to see if I could
get what FastFolders is about. Or study over ShellGem, to see if I could
get an idea about what it's primary use is (a quick glance alone is not
enough for. There is such a big old tangle of things going on).
Let me be lazy, before reading or thinking the subject. Is the primary
desired function to do with fly-out submenus on the explorer context-menu
for copy/move to favored locations? If so, then is there any chance File
Targets might serve? It has fewer functions than ShellGem, and it wasn't
a utility I personally felt inclined to try to develop a working relationship
with, but enough people like it to have voted it Pricelessware.
http://www.pricelessware.org/2004/PL2004FILEUTILITIES.htm#FileManagerTools