original msg. <<<< Thanks for your help.. I tried all three suggestions.. however it has not gotten rid of this pesky thing. My original o.s. was Win 98.. however I now have XP Home edition. Sometime back I removed the Roxio.. and this remnant remained.. Liz>>>> Hi, sorry none worked. the following URL (PLEXTOR SUPPORT) has a fix titled " How to uninstall Easy CD Creator Basic or Deluxe 3.x or 4.x in Windows XP? " "easy cd creator/direct cd etc" are part of (what was earlier known as adaptec and now ROXIO) software installations which came with some cd burners and if i remember correctly was also in windows media player version 9. http://tinyurl.com/f543n PLEASE NOTE: the fix contained in the above URL involves some manual registry edits (and cautions as such) so pl back up all your data I do HTH and good luck----Venkat The NOSPIN Group Promotions is now offering our special coffee mugs and mouse pads with the PCBUILD logo... at a great price!!! http://freepctech.com/goodies/promotions.shtml