Casino Complaint Titan Poker - no way to UN-INSTALL software!!!

[DaFlesh]

Hi all,

About a month ago, I contacted Titan Poker's "Online Help" because I could not find any way to remove Titan Poker from my PC.

Please keep in mind that I build PCs for a living, so I know what I'm doing.

I also complained about the extraordinary number of bad beats I witnessed, however I really just wanted to remove the software.

The Online Rep advised me that I could not do that from my end! WTF? I expressed my concern with this, and after refusing some free Tourney entries offered to try and convince me to stay, my chat session was abruptly ended. I was automatically suspended, and when I have tried emailing support, I get a "Returned Mail Error", as though the email address is no longer valid.

I am left with a suspended account. A program I cannot remove. And no way to contact Titan Poker.

eCogra cannot help me (not their juristiction)....has anyone got any advice for me at all? Or a similar experience perhaps?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

 

[ksech]

Did you try doing a search on all drives (include all files and folders in the search)?

 

[DaFlesh]

Yes, I did.

I honestly tried everything...(I think)

 

[bb28]

There is a free program that I use to get rid of some pesky stuff that is difficult to uninstall, it's called CCleaner. On the tools menu there is a uninstall option.

 

[DaFlesh]

Thank you...but I have tried that too...

I honestly don't know what to do next.....and I find it amazing that I am the ONLY one that appears to have this situation!

How can you have a Program that you can't remove!!!???

 

[Uther]

Just found these on their support page. ( Link Removed ( Old/Invalid) ) Might be worth calling them. GL.



Toll Free (Canada only) +1(888)201-5684
Fax (Canada only) +1(877)789-5725
Toll Free (UK only) 0-800-066-4320
Phone (Intl) +632-756-7927
Fax (Intl) +632-756-7907

 

[DaFlesh]

Thanks for the information, however I live in Australia, and I would prefer not to spend any more money with anything to do with Titan Poker!

I emailed every email address on their site, and finally got a response from them, telling me that they closed my account, and to uninstall the program through Control Panel.

The problem is, their program does not appear in Control Panel under "Add/Remove Programs"!

I am still no closer to uninstalling it...

This is driving me crazy...and I have serious doubts about this site for a variety of reason...

 

[anniemac]

Have you tried going into 'regedit' and searching for Titan Poker and removing it that way? I've had some really difficult to remove programs and got rid of them that way.

 

[luarod]

It seems that you have tried almost everything. This is really weird. I agree with anniemac, try looking for the program using regedit. I can't think of anything else.

 

[maxd]

I know how the OP must feel. I hate, Hate, HATE it when applications behave as if they own my computer and would very much like to see the OP find a solution to his problem and for us to have that posted here on the forums.

To that end I have (slightly) renamed this thread so it focuses on the uninstall issue. I'm also offering a (modest) reward to anyone who comes up with a winning solution: one (1) PAB on any casino, no restrictions, provided the person is a Casinomeister member in good standing.

So there it is: the challenge is on! Let's help this guy get his computer back from people who have no right to take it over in the first place.

 

[bingo account]

Have you tried:

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or

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or

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[DaFlesh]

Hi again...

I tried the "regedit" approach, but again, it does not appear.

After emailing ALL of Titan Poker's contact emails, I received 3 replies only. Each one telling to do so through Control Panel "Add/Remove Programs". Titan Poker does not appear there! I replied telling them that, not a response back at all.

What bothers me is the Live Chat rep TOLD me that I can't remove the program from my end! I didn't believe him at the time. I am starting to now.

3 of the email addresses listed on their site came back as "undeliverable". Great site hey.

Does anyone have any other ideas????

 

[DaFlesh]

To the previous poster, I have not tried those 3 programs you listed, however I have tried "Perfect Uninstaller" (which is similar) - again, it did not find Titan Poker!!!

I will give them a shot tomorrow and let you how what happened...

Thanks for the advice.

 

[maxd]

If it were me trying to tackle this (and assuming I had no clue what the processes were named) I would start by doing a full backup of your system drive. Burn it off to disk or whatever so you know you have access to it. Try to restore it just to make sure you can. Now you're covered in case you mung something up and have to roll back to a working system. Personally I use something called Acronis True Image for this stuff: serous software for serious work.

Now open the Task Manager and try to locate the processes or sub-process that you think might be part of the casino software. Make a note of them, especially their full path so you know where they are located. Kill one of those and see if it brings the casino software down. If so, you're on your way: let's call this your "hit" and proceed to Step One. If it had no effect on your system then go to Step Four.

Step One: search for the "hit" on the web. You want to make sure it's not a critical part of your OS. Assuming it is ten proceed to Step Two. If it is system critical them it may be that the casino software has infected it (like a virus) and you need to pursue methods to get a clean version installed.

Step Two: often these little bastards will cluster so if you do manage to locate something that is part of the software then look that up in the Registry (all the usual caveats: backup the Registry first and know that mucking about in there can seriously hoop your operating system if you do something seriously wrong) and there's a good chance it will point you to other components of the suspect software. Follow those down as you've been doing with your "hit".

Step Three: do what you need to do to delete the thing (your "hit"), which may include booting from a safety disk; now that it's gone reboot to make sure and start the process all over again.

Step Four: If the thing you suspected and killed does not affect the casino software then you're likely following a dud path and you have got to try again: forget deleting anything, just reboot and start over.

Personally I find an app called Process Explorer better for this kind of work. You can find that here:

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There is no other way to say this: this is a brute force and risky approach if you don't know what you are doing. Cover your arse with backups, as pointed out above. It will take plodding patience to see this through but 90% of the time this procedure will get you were you want to go. Give yourself a few hours to get it done and things back to normal, assuming you've never done this kind of thing before.

However tedious this process may seem just think of how good you'll feel once you finally root the thing out and have it off your system. Get even with the bastards for wasting your time by posting your successful procedure on the web in highly visible places, like here for instance.

 

[ksech]

If all else fails you can buy an external hard drive and copy your important programs and data onto that. Reformat/repartition your existing harddrive and then reload all your programs again. This gets rid of the software, but it doesn't allow you to figure out WHAT or HOW they are hiding their program.

Just out of curiosity...has anyone else tried to download this software, and when downloading it, have you noticed if it is downloading to a file named OTHER than Titan Poker? If they are hiding their program software under a different name then this is why you can't locate it. Also, have you tried searching by software instead of casino name?

 

[mattsgame]

What version of windows are you running? sorry if you have said but i couldn't see it.



Now I have a process that might work and it is going to look scary

For window vista/7 Click Start: and in search paste this c:\windows\installer For earlier versions click Run and paste c:\windows\installer and hit enter.

What comes up is all the programs installed under windows and this can be a bit daunting.

Under all the folders you will see installers. e.g 1feo4d, 12jo9f etc etc. You need to right click each one and click properties (on windows 7/vista Click the DETAILS Tab On earlier Version Click The Summary Tab) and u need to find out which one is related to Titan Poker...

If you find the right one note it down in case you lose it. On the one that is related to Titan Poker (wish i could tell you but i have never installed it) Right click it and then click un-install.


This way, goes behind the back door of the Control Panel - Add/remove.. So hopefully you see it listed here. If not we can try something else.



Hope this made sense its 1:00am and I was rushing it

 

[maxd]

...has anyone else tried to download this software, and when downloading it, have you noticed if it is downloading to a file named OTHER than Titan Poker? If they are hiding their program software under a different name then this is why you can't locate it. Also, have you tried searching by software instead of casino name?

If you're on WinXP and you're willing to go to this kind of effort then you could always try this procedure, works 99% of the time:

1. find a trace installer, a program that makes a record of every change made to your system while you are installing something. Keep looking until you find one that notes all system changes (files installed, updated or removed) and all Registry changes too. I used to use a PCMag app (can't recall the name) but these days I just use Sandboxie since it tells me more or less the same thing and offers roll-back features that I find useful. Trouble with Sandboxie is that if an app is really system-intensive (some are, some aren't) then Sandboxie will fail on the install. It still remembers all the changes that were made though so you can always use that info to root through your system.
2. back-up your system drive.
3. run your trace installer and install the casino software: it is by far the best to use the installer for the same version of the casino software that you had previously installed. This should produce a record of ALL changes made to your system during the install, including Registry changes. With this you can completely remove EVERYTHING the installer does to your system.
4. use the record generated by the tracer to step through your system ripping out the offending crap, the idea being that what the casino software installer is doing to your system NOW will very likely be what it did when you PREVIOUSLY installed the software (there's that 1% chance of failure popping up). Some trace installers will do this for you but it's still worth checking manually at the end to make sure everything has been removed.
5. reboot, you should have a clean system now. If so feel free to post your install trace here (as an attachment would be best) so others will know how to get rid of the blasted thing too.
6. if the reboot fails (rather unlikely but you never know) go back to your system back-up and try again.

This is the relatively safe and thorough way to accomplish what I roughed out in my earlier post. Don't forget that system back-up before you start though, consider that a non-optional part of the procedure.

 

[tat00]

i cannot believe that titan software cannot be deleted- im a computer techie also and first thing i would do is run in safe mode so no program can take over - and try to delete it - if that does not work i would run hirens cd and boot to it (different environment than your computer) and go in there and delete it i 100 percent guarantee that will work . if it is unavailable to delete it is then imbedded in your registries which it is locked. if thats the case you need a reg editor to scan through this - and finally if all fails run hijack this it will display all services running in background and allows you to kill it and never come back -
message me if that doesnt work i can remote in to your computer and fix it guarantee.

 

[LondonDJ]

I'm assuming you've tried...

The following programmes to try and remove it:

- Malwarebytes anti-malware
- Glary utilities
- Advanced system care

They are all available for free on www.cnet.com/downloads - I use them all and, between the three of them, they have yet to fail me. Good luck in getting this sorted!

 

[maxd]

@DaFlesh: any news? Have any of the suggested methods worked for you? Please let us know if and when you get some results.

 

[SlotMonster]

I usually use this one little thingy:

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Hope it will help.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Some softwares hide their uninstall entry such that it doesn't appear under add/remove programs. It is still possible to uninstall them by using a third party application that looks for ALL installed software, even if hidden. Many total uninstallers create their logs from running during the initial install, thus have problems removing software that was installed prior to this. Installing the same version over the top of the original whilst running the uninstall logger will create a log that should enable a complete removal.

Sometimes, the uninstall via add/remove programs gets corrupted, and even if listed, will give an "unable to uninstall" error.

There are a number of Microsoft components that come with "this cannot be removed once installed" in the notes, so it IS possible to create software that cannot be removed. If Titan have done this deliberately, then they should be considered for the "rogue software" section of CM. It is more likely though that this has happened by accident, else there would have been a flood of complaints from players unable to remove the software.

CCleaner comes with it's own uninstall tool, as does Advanced System Care. TweakUI from Microsoft also offers similar functionality.

When an installer installs software, it creates a log of what it does, and stores a link to this in the registry. This is where add/remove programs looks when generating it's list. It is possible to hide this entry from add/remove programs by storing the details in a registry key not inspected by add/remove programs, or by recording a "null" string for the software display name such that add/remove programs thinks there is nothing there to list.

 

[jod5413]

Damn, all of you "techies" make me feel dumb! And Max, for someone who states that he is not a computer expert, you sure know your chit!! It's good to know if I have a problem, one of my fellow members can help!

 

[diddler]

Titan Poker

Hi guys,

I tried to remove Titan Poker from my PC last week using control panel but to no avail, Titan wouldn't allow it.

I wasn't sure if this was a common problem so I searched online and found this forum.

I tried both the regedit and the search in all drives way of deleting it from the system.

After removing all the files that had anything with Titan Poker in its name I tried uninstalling the program again and a message came up saying I had possibly already uninstalled the program so thanks for the help!!

 

[incrediblestuff]

Cool, ill take that challenge, hope i wont be needing a pab... ( unless you would go back a year or some and get my money from planet 7 i think it was ^^)

Has the Op tried, to just delete the folder? if then e permissions dont dissalow it, which could be harder under vista or w7, that should get rid of the bunch, after that its just a matter of searching in regedit, for every entry with titan in it, and it should be gone.

If this doesnt work there is the option of killing files by overwriting a file 12 times or more, to complety wipe it, with several antivirus programs, ill suggest "Eraser", which is a freeware app i believe is recommended by the guys at Hijackthis.
Better search their site to make sure.
then if this is already tried, and the acces is still denied, you could:
Open the "run" or "command prompt" and do that with your right mouse "run as admin"
Open Windows Explorer, open the folder you want to delete or remove a file from. click on the adress-field to reveal the true folder path.
Highlight the path from the colon ( all text behind this symbol -> :)
Right-click the highlighted part, and choose copy (or press ctrl+c)
Go back to your command window and type: CD\ (this will open the root folder)
Now Type: CD\ and paste in the path using right-click, paste (ctrl+v will NOT work).
Like this: CD\"your folder"
Type the following if you want to delete all files in the folder: DEL *.* /F /Q

Sometimes Windows Explorer needs to be shut down, for this to work, then just:

Right click the Taskbar, choose Task Manager.
Open the Process Tab and locate explorer in the list.
Right click the name Explorer.exe and choose “End Process“, confirm if asked
All open explorer windows will close
Use Alt Tab to switch back to the "run" or "cmd.prmpt", then proceed as above.
Hope this makes sense.

EDIT:
i see whilst i was typing this the prob was more or less solved... "facepalm"
And appearantly i missed the fact there were two more pages with lots of good advice... must be the time of night