What is the deal with the InstallShield updater?

[Burke]

I've NEVER had this program try to phone home for updates, but in the past week, it continually pops up out of nowhere in my system tray. My firewall blocks it from outgoing communication, but I'm curious as to why it suddenly is showing up.

It loads two things, ISUSPM.EXE and ISSSsomething.exe. Doing a Google search shows others have seen it mysteriously pop up, but I have not installed anything different than I have the past two years.

[YARDofSTUF]

isuspm.exe is the auto updater for install sheild, it'll check for new versions.

[Burke]

isuspm.exe is the auto updater for install sheild, it'll check for new versions.

YEAH. I KNOW.

It's never shown up before, now in the past three weeks it's started to.

[YeOldeStonecat]

but I have not installed anything different than I have the past two years.


Have you done any updates to software? Do you have any OEM software or is this a virgin fresh XP install? I'd suspect is just a custom OEM installer package from something that came with the PC..more and more OEM software is coming with auto-updaters lately. AFAIK this isn't from windows updates or microsoft updates..else all my machines would have them..but I have naked clean XP installs, and none have it. It loads from the usual "run" location in HKLM.

[Burke]

Have you done any updates to software? Do you have any OEM software or is this a virgin fresh XP install? I'd suspect is just a custom OEM installer package from something that came with the PC..more and more OEM software is coming with auto-updaters lately. AFAIK this isn't from windows updates or microsoft updates..else all my machines would have them..but I have naked clean XP installs, and none have it. It loads from the usual "run" location in HKLM.

It's my personal PC, not an OEM. I have not installed anything different than I have in the past two years.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Full retail versions of software? Or perhaps an OEM install of something..like say...Roxio burning software?

Yes just about all software uses the Install Shield...but some software venders use a more customized one...one that may check for and provide if found...updates to their software.

So perhaps in the past month you applied a patch or update to some software.

It's harmless..but if you're not fond of "phone home" software, you can whack it in the registry. You do have it listed under hklm/software/microsoft/windows/current version/run
or
hkcu/"" "" "" "" ?

[CableDude]

I've seen what Burke is talking about. I just disabled them with MSCONFIG.