[fishman9]

I did some digging trying to find a registry entry to disable the ActiveUpdate. Well there is no registry entry that I could find.

Here is what I did learn.

1. The ActiveUpdate process is part of the AOLSoftware program. That is why some people have been able to get the popup window to go away when they stop the program in the task manager. However the AOLSoftware.exe program starts right back up after you stop it in the task manager.

2. AIM needs the AOLSoftware.exe program to function properly. I found the exe file and renamed it to see if that would stop the popup. However AIM would not work after I renamed the file.

3. The ActiveUpdate is definately part of AIM and if AOL is claiming it is not then they are feeding people a load of you know what.

There is a file usually located in the documents and settings/all users/Application Data/AOL/User Profiles/All Users/SUDS/METRICS called Stic. This is an AIM log file that can be opened in note pad.

This shows entries where the AOLSoftware program checks the NagDelay to see if it is time to open the popup window. There are also entries refering to the 3899.1.16 and 3881.7.19 updates people have mentioned. The entries for this show they are forced downloads. That is why people are finding entries on their hard drive as one person had mention. They do not install until you execpt them but they are downloaded without your permission.

From what I can tell all of this is executed from the Stic.dll and is an embedded part of AIM.

I also found several XML files that show the code for display perametters for the popup window.

AOL can denie all they want that this is not something from them, but this stuff is all over AIM files.

Okay, enough on the cause what about a fix.

Well I cannot guarantee this will work for everyone but so far the popup window has not return and I am not seeing any ill effects to AIM so far.

Do a search on the file name Strings.XML. You should find it in the Program Files/Common Files/AOL/1137608115/ee/services/softwareUpdate/ver1_14_2_2/resources/en_US

Others might have a different path to the file. Just be sure you are in the AOL directory. Rename the Strings.XML file. I renamed mine to renameStrings.XLM. That way I could undo the change should I find out later things are not working right.

I also deleted any reference to the 3899 and 3881 updates since these are what were downloaded originally. That way I could see if my change worked or not if these files were re-downloaded.

I cannot promiss this will work for everyone but so far this has worked for me.