I can't find any MSN files on the computer, though. I'm not savvy enough to know what file names to look for though, if they're using aliases, so to speak.
If there aren't any outward signs that MSN could have imprinted itself on your version of IE, something far more subtle and, IMO, more insidious could be happening. First let me give you a little Windows programming lesson:
All Windows programs link to .dll files. These are dynamic link library files (dll for short), which contain routines that a main program will call. It's much easier for programmers to split programs up into separate files because if a certain routine needs to be altered or updated, only the library file that contains that routine has to be worked with. And most often these library files won't take up memory unless a routine in them is being called on.
But here's where things can get tricky, some ISPs will either add routines to already existing library files, or they'll create their own - and they'll do it in such a way that even if you upgrade your browser from Microsoft or Netscape's Web site rather than the ISP's own site, the newer version of the browser will still act as if the ISP's library file is a vital part of itself - hence the insidiousness of what they do.
Now, with Netscape it's fairly easy to get rid of these sneaky library files because all someone has to do is go to Add/Remove Programs in the Windows Control Panel and remove Netscape. Windows will read the main program to see what library files it calls, and if no other programs are also using them, they'll be removed from your hard drive (though it isn't always the case that Windows will actually remove
all of them - but any that remain will be orphaned - which is something we'll get into shortly). Then you just reinstall your current version or upgrade.
However, with IE it isn't that simple. You can't just remove IE because it's part of the Windows operating system. The only way to be 100% sure that you've gotten rid of sneaky library files with IE is to completely reformat your hard drive and reinstall Windows from scratch. Then if the version of IE that came with your Windows installation CD isn't the latest or the version of IE that you prefer, you have to upgrade to whatever version you'd rather have. (Yet more reasons why IE and Microsoft aren't exactly high on my list.
![[wink2]](http://www.dsboards.com/SMF/Smileys/classic/wink2.gif "Wink #2")
)
But to get back to your point, Mark, the only way to know what library files your version of IE is linking to, would be to run a program like Ziff Davis' FindOrphans (which actually searches for "orphaned" library files (meaning .dlls that aren't being called by any program on your computer) so that you can delete them yourself - but it also lists all the dlls that your programs are linking to) or to open IE's main program in a any program that can read binary code and search through the actual code to find the names of the dlls yourself (which can usually be a VERY tedious process). But even when you do know what library files are being linked to, you then have to search through each of them to find what you're looking for (in this case, any references to MSN), and the programmers who developed these sneaky library files (for whatever ISP) know that the average IE user isn't about to do that. So they feel pretty confident that in the majority of instances (unless someone reinstalls Windows from scratch, or another ISP imprints itself on IE), their imprint of IE is going to remain - even if the subscriber decides to change ISPs somewhere down the line...
