How to delete a task bar icon? (3rd party software)

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Level 1

4 points

How to delete a task bar icon? (3rd party software)

Good morning!

About a year ago, I installed Go to my PC on my iMac so when travelling away from home I coud access my 'main' computer using a MacBook Air. When I returned home several months ago (for good), I uninstalled Go to my PC. The problem is, there is still an icon on the right hand side of my taskbar, but there is no way by clicking on the icon I am given any chance to delete the icon itself. Here is what I have done so far.....

1) CTRL-dragging the icon does not work. This program is NOT an Apple program, so this technique does not work. ;-(

2) I entered System Preferences, Users and Groups, signed in as Admin, yet did not see anything releated to g2mypc.

3) I then went into the Activity Monitor, under Disk Activity, clicked on ALL processes, and scanned the list. I did find a Go to my PC icon there followed by a file. I highlighted it, then clicked on Quit, a Force Quit box popped up, I clicked on that, and the icon disappeared! But not for long. As soon as I restarted my system, it re-appeared. :-(

4) I repeated my steps to get to this file and instead of quitting it or force quitting it, I just tried to delete it. No joy....nothing I did could get rid of the file. I again force quit it, it disappeared, but again re-appeared on the next restart.

This program is no longer on my Mac. I used Spotlight to try and find that certain file within the activity monitor but Spotlight couldn't find it. I then openend up Finder, tried searching 'my whole Mac" for that file and came up empty again. It's in the root directory.....so that's where I am stuck.

My iMac's third birthday is today, BTW. This little icon is taking up 8 megs of memory, not a huge amount, but on a three year old machine I need every bit of memory I can muster...plus, that icon sitting up there just gets on my nerves.

I have not contacted the support people for Go to my PC for help....their Mac support, at least a year ago, was just a little 'light' :-) I'd rather get help here than there.... so do any of you have any ideas that may help me?

Thanks in advance!

Cheers!

Pat

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Dec 11, 2012 7:42 AM

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Answer 1

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thomas_r.

Level 7

31,989 points

Dec 11, 2012 8:08 AM in response to p_rod50

Of course, GoToMyPC's web site has instructions for uninstalling the Windows version, but not the Mac version. I won't say what I think about that, because this forum's profanity filter would erase it anyway! 😉

Rather than using Spotlight, I would recommend getting a copy of EasyFind. That can look everywhere, and can often find things that Spotlight cannot (although it's also a lot slower than Spotlight). Search for "gotomypc" as well as "go to my pc".

Also, you said you "signed in as Admin" and looked in the Users & Groups preferences. I assume that means you looked at the Login Items list... but, are you normally signed in as the admin user, or as a different user? Each user has their own list of login items, and if you're normally logged in as a different user, the admin user's login items are not relevant for the problem.

I imagine that the process, wherever it may be, is kept running by a LaunchAgent (in the folder "~/Library/LaunchAgents") or a LaunchDaemon (in the folder "/Library/LaunchDaemons"). You can use the Go To Folder item in the Finder's Go menu to go straight to those folders, and look for anything starting with com.gotomypc.

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Answer 2

p_rod50 Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 11, 2012 8:32 AM in response to thomas_r.

Hi, Thomas!

By saying I signed in as Admin... I should have been more clear....in order to make any changes in Users and groups, I had to enter my system password. (No one but me uses this machine). I hope that clears it up a little! ;-)

You are very right..under the go2mypc file, there were a handful of Launch Agent files too..and if I happened to click on one of those, another icon would pop up on the menu bar!

I will look under Library Launch Agents/Daemons to see what I can find. I will also track down Easy Find.....thank you for the tip on that.

I'll get busy on that right now and will let you know as soon as I can whether this solution works for me!

Cheers!

Pat

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Answer 3

p_rod50 Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 12, 2012 11:13 AM in response to thomas_r.

Hey Thomas!

I can now boot up WITHOUT that GTM-PC icon popping up anymore. Thanks a lot!

I found several 'lines' in my Library containing go to my pc....both under Launch Agents and Launch Daemons... along with several others here and there as I scrolled through the long list of folders. I moved then to a folder on my desktop "just in case" before placing them in the trash. I've had at least three re-boots now without anything ugly happening, so I think this problem is SOLVED!

Again, thanks!

Pat

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