Alcohol 120% is an invasive POS

[vertigo]

I had a problem where axshlex.dll was crashing Windows Explorer on a right click on any drive, was crashing emule when more than 100 files were listed in the search window and was crashing Netscape when I had more than a few tabs open. I could replicate the error every single time and axshlex.dll was the culprit on every occasion when I checked the error details and logs.
I initially thought it was a Windows dll coz that seemed the obvious answer so I was going to overinstall the OS to refresh all the critical files, then did a search just to make sure and found the file was only in the Alcohol directory.
Weird, because Alcohol wasn't set to start up at all under any circumstances, even checking all the startup items within msconfig and services.dll
I decided to uninstall Alcohol and do a reboot. I then replicated the error and it crashed again, with axshlex.dll the culprit again even though I'd supposedly uninstalled the application. I checked the program directory and the whole application was still there, as were the shortcuts in the Start menu!! I tried to run the app and it still worked fully, even after an uninstall and it no longer appearing in the add/remove dialog!!
I decided to manually delete the directory and it gave me a warning that other programs wouldn't run properly if I deleted the directory. I deleted it anyway, I'm hard like that. Shortcuts went in the bin too.
Then I emptied the recycle bin and did a reboot to make sure it was completely flushed. My start-up time used to be around 1 minute 20 seconds and even if I stopped my firewall and other applications loading on start-up that didn't decrease. Having completely removed Alcohol it's now magically gone down to 55 seconds.
All three replicatable errors no longer occur.
This thread isn't so much a question as a warning to avoid this shoddy and invasive piece of crap software.

[kernow]

lol windows power users rock

[Combination]

Good riddance! Besides, why opt for a proprietary format when you have the readily supported CloneCD? Which in comparison has a lower memory footprint and is far less intrusive.


If you need a virtual CD/DVD solution, just use daemon-tools.

[vertigo]

Yeh, the only reason I'd installed it was because I had an image that wouldn't burn and someone recommended it to be pretty much capable of everything. Apparently it's more capable of things than I'd realised.

[Friction]

Nero all the way for me, never had an issue!


Sounds like it's good to be shot of it anyhow!

[sj33]

I really only have Alcohol 120% for it's .cdi writing ability, since Discjuggler works with only a handful of drives.
It being installed means I may as well use it to burn other stuff too, and for VirtualCD/DVD.

[Combination]

Ahhh, of course! Alcohol supports additional formats, that fact escaped me as I typed my previous post.

[babs]

Alcohol installs virtual cd drives/devices as mentioned above, which is probably what's cut your time down as they aren't loading. By the sounds of it it was the shell extension shortcut that was crashing in, ie. the right click menu options. so that's why it wouldn't show in the startup options. The program itself wasn't starting, just the hooks at explorer level.

Out of interest, did you pay for alcohol or register it 'via other means'? if it was other means, it's possible it did some registry ****s to get it to avoid the startup checks and therefore broke the uninstall option.

[mid]

I found a cdi to nrg program online somewhere, and that's worked every time I've ever had one to burn.

[vertigo]

Out of interest, did you pay for alcohol or register it 'via other means'? if it was other means, it's possible it did some registry ****s to get it to avoid the startup checks and therefore broke the uninstall option.

It was a full version got from some pc magazine disc ages ago.
Still, with regard to the shell extensions, why would that have been interfering with Netscape and emule, to the degree that I could reproduce the crash every single time?

[sj33]

I found a cdi to nrg program online somewhere, and that's worked every time I've ever had one to burn.

Never personally found an .nrg that would selfboot on my DC.... yet .cdi''s always worked fine.

[Chadruharazzeb]

Never had a problem with Alcohol (ie the program) personally. Guess I got lucky

[charlesr]

Thanks for this. I tried out alcohol120 ages and ages ago and then uninstalled it. My boot time has been far too long for as long as I can remember - it sits on the windows logo with the blue knightrider thing for ages. So I've tried installing it again and then uninstalling it straight away. My boot time is now halved.

[babs]

It probably builds an index of the listed files, in an attempt to pre-empt a 'rightclick > burn now with alcohol' when it lists the files.

I don't know, just giving a best guess

[Hohum]

Never had any problems with Alcohol 120%. No long boot times, no crashes. Perhaps the version you were using was too old to work properly under XP SP2 (assuming that's what you're running, of course).