Erasing a brick wall
By Charles Miller
November 28, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

A few weeks ago I dropped into Best Buy and put down US$19.95 to buy a new Memorex Mini TravelDrive USB flash drive. I was happy to do so knowing how much the prices of those drives have plummeted in recent months.

The package said something called U3 was included on the disk, but I paid little attention to this as I had bought other USB flash drives in the past that came with various programs. I was only interested in the disk and just erased the files, but this time that turned out to be not so easy.

The package said the drive “comes bundled with four value-added applications for email, security, file synchronization and virus detection.” I found this to be a self-executing program that started itself whenever the disk was plugged into my laptop. It took a minute or so to load, during which time the computer was unresponsive; then popped up several messages offering to help me use my new disk.

This held no appeal for me as the applications duplicated existing features on my computer; after looking over the program, I decided to erase it. That is when I came up against a brick wall. The U3 software resides in a faux CD-ROM drive on the USB flash drive disk. You cannot delete it, you cannot turn it off, you cannot get rid of it.

Being a technician, I knew there was a way to erase the unwanted programs, so I went searching. I surfed the Memorex and U3 websites and found no information about how to remove the software.

My email to Memorex technical support produced a response telling me that the software could not be removed! I knew this was a bald-faced lie.

I got on the phone and tried calling the number listed for Memorex technical support. That turned out to be a complete waste of time. This left me silently expressing my reaction as %$#@ &*@# %$!* when suddenly a light bulb went on in my head.

I rushed back to the keyboard and pulled up the Google search engine. There I did a search for “Memorex TravelDrive %$#@” and lo and behold Google found several newsgroups with those keywords. The first was a message from a frustrated buyer asking, “How do I get rid of the %$#@ing software on my Memorex TravelDrive?” My search for “Memorex %$!*” led me to a site where another buyer complained, “The %$!* Memorex software” was Windows-only and the un-erasable virtual CD was causing problems with his Mac.

Finally, my searches landed me on a page where someone had posted a utility program that could be used to remove the U3 software and make the Memorex TravelDrive a normal USB flash drive. Though an obscure site, thousands of users already had downloaded this file before I found it. Allegedly, this removal utility was only to be used by Best Buy and other retailers whenever irate customers showed up at the store demanding, “Remove the %$#@ software or give me a refund.”

I downloaded the “u3uninstall.exe” utility and a minute later I was finally rid of the unwelcome software.

In the final analysis, I have to allow that some users might find the U3 software useful, but I suspect most will not.

What I find particularly objectionable is being lied to by Memorex and their deliberately hiding information about how to remove the U3 software. I might have given their software more of a chance had they not been dishonest and tried to cram it down my throat.

Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant, a frequent visitor to San Miguel since 1981 and now practically a full-time resident. He may be contacted at 044-415-101-8528 or email FAQ8 (at) SMAguru.com.