WKDetect is like Medusa!

WKDetect.exe keeps coming back...As far as I know it is a stupid autoupdate thing for M$ Works that tries to run every time XP starts up.

In the past removing the entry using MSConfig worked. Now it comes back! Sometimes it takes a few days. Not sure why!

7-19-05: Maybe HijackThis can stop it. Trying it now!

But...what's the deal? Does this happen to everyone?


- HandsOff

 

Hi,

Have you resolved this?

If not, I have a computer that I am working on that has this. I will kill it tonight and tell you what I did.

Close

 

Hi -

It seems as though it is gone, just looked at my task manager (actually Wintasks). But I still have to ask myself, 'For how long?' To go into a bit more detail you will have found that WKDetect.exe is placed in your startup folder in your program groups. I assume this is just a decoy, as it will come back on its own. Next you may try services.msc were you can disable it, along with it's sidekick WKCalrem.exe. But my experience was that the cats came back the very next day. eventually, using MSConfig.exe, I thought I had removed them for good...but, no...

The last thing I tried was using HijackThis to remove them, and so far they are gone.

This leads to the larger question of why Microsoft feels it is necessary to try to force users to use program features instead of allowing them to decide what features they want to use.

My major concern at present is getting a handle on the options in MS Word. Same old problem. I set the options I want, but they always seem to revert. I would like to find out how others have dealt with this by posting another thread, but I have been shocked by the fact that most people seem to like all the annoying features that I can't make go away!


- HandsOff

 

Microsoft does this with Office as well. There is an applet called CTFMON.EXE that insists on starting up if you install the alternate user interface. Apple does this with QTTASK.EXE, and MusicMatch with MMTASK.EXE. If you remove them from startup, they just get added back in.

Companies should not be allowed to do this. They should be required to prompt you, and your decision should be permanent.

 

Don't worry HandsOff I'm like you when it comes to Microsoft Word.

The program's insistant autoformating has nearly drove me to pulling out all my hair on several occassions. I wish that Microsoft would quit peaving around with the auto stuff and leave it to the user to format some things his/her self ex. Bullets............ I hate them!!! Sometimes Word will let be put a bullet under a bullet and 90% of the time it won't.

I use to use Corel WordPerfect but Word is the industrial standard unfortunately. I hear OpenOffice is good though.

Sorry about the rant. lol just had to get that off my chest and the post just sturred up unpleasant feelings lol.

 

I just remembered that Microsoft has a tool for this. Have you tried the Microsoft Office Save My Settings Wizard? I have it with Office XP (2002). You might want to give it a spin.

Another annoyance from Microsoft is the Links folder in IE Favorites. I don't know how many times I have deleted it, and it comes back with content inside from Microsoft.

And Outlook Express. I have un-installed that countless times, and it comes back.

 

Viper, You call that a rant?

When it comes to MS Word, I could make just about any rant sound like a neutral statement. The thing that irks me most is that MS will give you choices, and then just procede to ignore them (unless they happen to coincide with their wishes). BTW if you are talking about making nested bulleted lists, or simply one bulleted list followed by another, problems abound. Just because it is good sport to attempt to get Word to do what you want it to, I will give you sort of a trick that sometimes works when applying a different type of formatting than what precedes it. This may not be very sophisticated, but I find that it is usually easier if you create a blank line initially between the formats. It is usually best to go to the last line of the first, strike the "end" key to get to the end of the line and hit return key twice. Now you can usually make changes that don't effect the preceding. Afterward if you want to delete the blank line, you usually have to delete it from the end of the first part (not the beginning of the second part---if you do, its formating changes back to that of the first section. I realize that there is probably a slick way to do this, but who can resist trying to make Word do something without having devine intervention?

For those of you that want a bigger challenge, start using the = key repeated numerous times to make a double line, like some of do to visually divide areas in a doc. After you hit return do the ='s meld together seamlessly? If not, you have deactivated that autoformat option, and you can rightfully be proud of your accomplishment. If it does meld into the uni-double line your fun has just begun! A few days of trying to cut and paste lines from one section to the next should just about drive you insane. If you don't know what I am talking about DO NOT attempt to find out. If you do, I feel your pain.


Close Hauled, while I do appreciate that there may be a way to save my settings with the save my settings wizard, there is a catch. Getting rid of M$'s wizards is always near the top of my list of things I want to disable.


In the spirit of helping my fellow sufferers I offer one more iconoclastic bit of advice. Turn off all autoformatting. That's right, every single one. It's bad enough that it is capable of rewriting what one writes, but it is very hard to apply the manual formatting when the program is doing who knows what, automatically.

Okay, that's it. That was my rant. I hope someone will find something useful in what I said, but chances are that most people who use MS Word think that automatic saving of your document periodically is really smart. Well, it may just be if:

You didn't just delete 50 pages and before you could repair the damage Word jumps in and auto saves your blunder...

...And if you are using an O/S or application that you can expect will somehow destroy your work automatically....

...And if you are incapable of saving your work at such time as you feel is appropriate, dare I say it? Manually! (That's right Bill, some people can do stuff like save documents, all by themselves!)


Okay, really, I am done with my rant (unless I have my auto-rant setting activated...)

- HandsOff

 

Hello,
There's a simple way of removing that seamless double line, by the way.
Just select the the part of text that contains it and under Style (below save, open etc) click Clear formating. Your ugly lines will be gone.
Another suggestion, if you write a document, write your text FIRST. All of it. Save the styles and formatting for the end. After you have the bulk of your data saved, create a second copy and start playing with lines, numbers and bullets. Works ok for me. Took me a while some years ago to figure how the Office works. Once I realized the moronic pattern, it's been fun working.
If you want Office to hog your resources less, use HijackThis and remove the OSA from startup list. It won't come back.
BlackViper also has suggestion how to permanently delete Outlook Express and other useless appilcations.
Mrk

 

Hi MrKvonic -

Good comments! Lot's of the time, I write in outline form, and need to use indenting, and formatting to make it readable. And often I have to cut and paste moving something from one catagory to another. Usually it's not a big problem, but MS Word makes a problem out of nothing too often too suit me.

BTW, someone here at Wilders mentioned to me a program called "Pure Text". It is freeware, and it allows you to copy formatted text, from the web, or Word, or whatever, and then paste it back as, well, pure text.
To date I have never convinced anyone that this is a good thing, but it really is! Much easier to grab text from the web, and much easier to get in a form that is agreeable to whatever formatting you are applying. Hard to use you ask? Not at all. Just copy the formatted text and past it into your document, but instead of Control-V, use WindowsButton-V. When activated, the program runs in the background giving you the choice of pasting with (Control-V) formatting, or without (Windows-V).

By the way, my gripe with the double (or single line, forged by unifying single dashes together) is that they cause some truly bizaar things to happen when cutting and pasting from above or below. I can't tell you what, because it varies according to some rules I have never understood. They not behave as strings of characters. I never use them in my outlines anymore. Just not worth it.

I did manage to remove the OSA thing on own...don't remember what it does, but that should be an indication of how useless it is.

A big part of my dilemna is that Microsoft thinks that I have / Want:

- Microsoft Frontpage
- Microsoft Office
- Microsoft Works 6.0
- Microsoft Works Suite 2002

Those are just a sample of the folders found in my Program Files. The truth is all I want is MS Word. And I thought I made this very clear to the installer! I don't dare disturb the delicate balance of power by removing anything.

People talk about deleting outlook express alot, and I am not sure if they mean outlook express, or the messenger thing. The messager thing is purely a useless liability IMHO, and I have found the most expedient way or removing it and numerous other annoyances of the same order, are with a program called XP-Antispy. It will completely remove the messenger! It's a nice freeware program!

If someone knows please correct me, but I think almost everyone uses outlook express, even if they don't use it explicitly. I think it is the basis of the mail client that most ISP's use. If so, then I would not think it could be replaced unless you install something like "Thunderbird". I sort of admire the people who use thunderbird but have not tried it myself. I wish I understood the subject better.

I like your comment it is FUN to use MSWord, and I agree totally. There are some great features I haven't mentioned and it is very easy to use. There is, however, no good explanation for having what must be literally over 100 different option settings many of which are hard to find, decypher, and get to abide by the user's settings. I'd love to find a (non-Microsoft) explanation for all the settings, and how to keep them under control.


-HandsOff

 

Hey C_H

After re-reading my earlier response I felt like I should have acknowledged more that it was something I had not thought of and might just work. I guess I just like to start right off with drastic approaches and work my way up the list...

Anyways, this topic is not dead just yet. Not while I am still reading it! Here's the latest:

- MSConfig solved the problem in the past, but does so no longer
- Wintask5 autostart deactivation, and also removal failed to keep it gone.
- DCS Autostart viewers remove prooved not to be permanent.
- HijackThis fix checked items was only a temporary fix.
- Ect...You get the idea.

Okay so I scowered the internet and came up with this:

Nirsoft's Office Ins - Don't know much about it yet...but it appears to
offer some hope.

BTW- It occurred to me that WKDetect started becoming extremely difficult
to remove just about when I installed the security patch for it. Now,
Far be it from me to accuse Microsoft as doing something as low down
as using a security update as a lever to take control away from a
customer. I will say IMHO, if Microsoft does use security updates to
retrofit old programs with more highly evolved data harvesters then
surely they should be held in lower regard than they are now.


- HandsOff

 

Enjoyed the rant, HandsOff. Much I can identify with there.

Well, I'm convinced that is a good thing, and I'd use it myself if I hadn't already got a workaround, which is using my firewall to block Word from web access so that it doesn't copy all the html formatting whenever I paste text from the web.

 

...so here I am getting ready to read the .chm (compiled help) manual preperatory to launching Nirsoft's OfficeIns so I can keep my computer from following other peoples instructions to open a connection with the web...And the .CHM file attempts to contact the internet, and apparantly will not run if I do not let it.

I thought chm's were entities unto themselves. I had internet explorer enabled, but no connection to the internet. Is this normal behavior for a CHM file? can they be converted to a text file?

- Handsoff.

 

My understanding is that they are compiled HTML files.

If you want to convert the CHM file to HTML, and see what it is doing, you may want this:

Convert chm to html browser-based help system with chm2web
http://chm2web.aklabs.com/index.php

 

Thanks, but actually what I had in mine was something that would convert it to plain text, or similar offline reading format. The goal would be more control over when and where I connect to the internet. I don't like little ploys to get me online when I don't want to be!


- HandsOff

 

CTFMon comes with Microsoft Office XP and Windows XP – it activates the Alternative User Input Text Input Processor (TIP) and the Microsoft Office XP Language Bar. As long as the Text Services & Speech are enabled in the Control Panel, this program will force itself back into your list of background programs.


Disable “Text Services & Speech” in the Control Panel if you are not using them. Then, disable CTFMon using Startup Manager. (Note that if you use Word, Excel or PowerPoint to write in different languages, eg. English and Arabic, then you will be using “Text Services & Speech” facilities).

 

There are converters. Just Google convert CHM to TXT, or convert CHM to PDf and you will find what you are looking for.

 

Thanks Shrek, and I will add this to the dosier I am compiling on MS Works. I At some point must have removed ctfmon from my start up because it is not there any more.

Now it appears that even though wkdetect.exe keeps being added to my startup list, it isn't actually ever executed. In fact, it has been completely deleted from my system! I was worried the instruction to start something that is not there would cause some problems, but apparently its okay to just delete it. I was so happy about that that I deleted wkfud.exe as well. (well, actually I backed it up first). If xp doesn't miss them, I think I can lay this issue to rest!
----------------------
CH - I guess I'll see what's out there.

I really have some misgivings about these things being able to make connections. wouldn't it be possible for them to fool your firewall into thinking that you are initiating contact, possibly with a whole list of sites. since you do not see the links, or addresses you don't even know. If one could convert it to a document (hopefully) one would at least be able to see the addresses being linked to. Hopefully Wilder's will tolerate a few questions and I will get a better idea if the threat is real or imaginary.


- HandsOff