Systems Tray

[Maurice]

When I am on Explorer, "o nm_hide" sometimes appears in my systems tray, the "o" is white on a black background & is underlined, it doesn't seem to do anything, if I click on it, it changes colour from white to grey, as if it is actioning something, but nothing......any ideas what it is please?

 

[StormBringer]

can't seem to find any info on this anywhere. "o nm_hide" looks like something you'd find in a registry string rather than an icon in the system tray.

A google search turned up 0 results, though I will keep looking, in the meantime maybe someone else has run accross this and can shed some light on it.

 

[Maurice]

Thanks, Stormbringer, It was actually; "o nm_opt_hide", I missed a part of it in my original posting, sorry. I didnt think of using Google, although I use it ALL the time, for lots of reasons, thanks for looking. It must be a glitch, perhaps you or someone else will find something further, it's a great comfort knowing that TS is there for me.

 

[Nic]

I am not certain about this, but it may be Norton Antivirus showing onload hide command in systray. This probably gets activated when you open Explorer due to the directory structure of your hard drive being read, and scanned for viruses during the read operation. Are you running Norton Antivirus?

 

[Maurice]

No not Norton, but I am running Norman Antivirus. Norman I believe is originally Australian & have contact addresses in many countries [I can bring this list on-screen] I am explaining all this, because no one has heard of Norman, they all think I mean Norton.
You may be correct that it is to do with Antivirus, as "nm" could possibly be an abbreviation of "Norman"don't you think?

 

[Nic]

You can try disabling your antivirus software and then checking if that icon still appears. It does seem very likely that this is what is happening, and as the software is not common, most of us here won't have seen that icon before.

 

[Maurice]

Thanks Nic, I'll try that, I, like you, think that must be it, I was a bit worried that it was something harmful.

 

[StormBringer]

I am somewhat familiar with Norman, as they bought Thunderbyte which used to be my choice of AV software until they bought it and ruined it by incorporating it into their own AV. that aside, this

should be the tray icon for Norman Virus control. It can vary by having the yellow !, a red X, or just the N itself according to Norman Industries
This could still be something related to Norman, maybe some update application or something to do with registering it...
It might also be some type of app that slipped in with something else you installed, I seem to recall a form completer that had a big O for its icon(it was something similar to Gator) You might want to run adaware or spybot if the Norman theory doesn't pan out.

 

[Maurice]

Thanks,Stormbringer, glad you know of Norman, you're the first person I know who does. Yes, it has that "N" in the tray, & it does vary as you say. Don't know if I dare admit that I d/loaded it, after the latest furore about me d/loading games [don't want to stir up THAT hornets nest again, hope it doesn't count!] I went to the Norman site & d/loaded the instructions for use regarding their Antivus I have installed, I'll have a look, & see if my mystery icon is mentioned. I have Auto Fill on my Google Tool Bar, wonder if it's the form completer that you mentioned, also I have a "websearch" tool bar which, among other things like "smileys" has a "pop swatter" that knocks out pop-ups before they appear, it had a "raspberry blowing" sound each time it swatted, until I used the mute function....made me jump, it was loud!, mentioned this, it also might have a connection to the icon in question [?]
Can I mention, as a matter of interest only, have you seen the brilliant "images" facility on the Google Tool Bar? it looks like a camera, you can type in anything, & it gives you about ten pages of twenty images each, useful for loads of applications, I use it mainly for inserting pictures on "Word" when writing letters.
Thanks once again, your replies are always the most informative.

 

[jamesegallagher]

I had this problem too Maurice, but it's not caused by Norman.

On my computer Nm_opt_hide is launched by a program called Opistat. It's not specifically adware and is not currently detected by SPYBOT. (I haven't tried with Ad Aware.)

But it does track Internet usage and submit statistics to a server on a regular time interval according to Pest Patrol : http://www.pestpatrol.com/pest_info/ru/n/netratings_premeter.asp

It ends up on your computer in a number of ways. In my case it was becasue my *cough* mum clicked on a ad to take part in consumer surveys in exchange for a free copy of Norman (which is a perfectly fine bit of software btw!).

When you try to uninstall Opistat it will tell you that your Norman software may stop operating correctly. Needless to say, this is not true.

So if you don't want mystery programs operating in the background and don't want your internet usage reported to a market research company behind your back, just get Opistat off you system. Hope this helps.

 

[Maurice]

Thanks, James, Firstly, welcome to TS!, it's a great site, they have helped me a LOT, I got rid of the "NT" bug with their help, couldn't assess TS on my PC, as it kept shutting down, so went along to my local computer repair shop, they accessed & d/loaded a patch....£1!. I have kept the floppy, just as well, as, a month later, back it came again.
Yes, I found that I had Opistat, I will try what you suggested.
Last night, after five hours of d/loading & installing Microsoft Updates, right at the very last, it just "stuck", it was "running programmes after install". I left it for just over an hour, there was a little h/drive actitivity,...a few blinks, that's all, it was still on-line.
In the end, it was very late, so I had no alternative but to shut my PC down, which took some doing, but at least I didn't have to use the switch. Whn I booted up a few minutes later, it stuttered a bit, but seems OK now [ I did check on installation history, & it HAD failed]
I just threw this at you, to see if you had any thoughts [will probably get told off by TS for going off the subject matter...won't be the first time!]
Ifind that I should have disabled my Norman AV, so will do this, & try again later, thanks, & thanks for listening, I do tend to "go on" it's my age you know, be my guest have a look at my profile, I have yours! .....did you know, you can go back & add to your profile [if you wanted to, of course]
All the best, Maurice, honoured to be your first "customer"