Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Is Kinkos/Fedex Plug-in Spyware?

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I just recently uninstalled what I thought would be a very useful plug-in for my Windows Office Suite (on Windows XP Pro - SP2). It is the Kinkos/Fedex Printer driver. However, after installing it, I had nothing but problems with the software, and so I called Fedex for help with it. The representative was very courteous and instructed me to uninstall the old version (1.0) and install the new version (2.0). I figured they had worked out some bugs, so I obliged. No go... after ridding the machine of the first version and installing the second, I had more problems. In fact, the the installer would not even finish the process. I called Fedex once more for help and was eventually told that I would have to manually remove the software by getting rid of the program files (very easy) and the registry entries (not so easy). I was told to do a search in the registry under the "local machine" entries for anything with "kinkos" in it. I found the entries and deleted them - over 30 of them. My question is this, why does a small plug-in program with one system dll file need over 30 registry entries? I have much larger, more complex programs on my computer that have only a few registry entries. My hope is that a "super geek" will investigate this and report on the purpose for all those entries. My advice on the plug-in? Skip it. Go to http://docstore.kinkos.com and save yourself the headache.

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