Hardware: Toshiba Satellite A215-S4697.. OS: Vista Premium Home SP1.. No previous verisons of SteadyState installed.. I am in the process of installing the latest SteadyState on six identical library laptops and have successfully configured four of them. Laptop #5 is not cooperating. I installed SteadyState and configured the laptop. I then needed to start the SteadyState GUI again and discovered the desktop shortcut had disappeared. I reinstalled SteadyState and got my shortcut back. Took the laptop to the library for final tweaks and discovered the shortcut disappeared again. Tried to reinstall SteadyState and the installer balked saying it was already installed. I found the GUI app in the Windows SteadyState directory and moved it to the desktop as a shortcut and I think I successfully used it to start the GUI one time. Next time I tried to start the GUI, I had an error message of "Steadystate.exe application failed to start. Missing sctutil.dll" - the dll is there however. I copied sctutil.dll from a working SteadyState installion, but the app still fails to start. Next plan was to delete SteadyState and reinstall. SteadyState is NOT present in the Control Panel add/remove applications utility. I tried to delete the SteadyState directory by removing the read-only restriction, but it won't delete - the read-only attribute keeps being reset. I booted up in safe mode and it won't delete. I tried stopping the service and killing all process I could find, and I still can't delete the directory. I tried to find %SystemRoot%\$NtUninstallSCT$\spuninst\spuninst.exe on another laptop with SteadyState installed to run the uninstaller on the problem laptop, but there is no such directory or exe file on a machine with a successfull SteadyState installation (I searched hidden and system files) - perhaps the uninstaller only applies to older versions or pre-Vista OSs. I also deleted the key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Computer Toolkit] Obviously, this key is not present: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall \Windows SteadyState] One more thing - Windows Disk Protection is not turned on. I am completely out of ideas and research hasn't turned up any results on TechNet that resolved my problem. Help! TIA - John Canfield

Hi John, I suggest you log on the computer by using the account that used to install Windows SteadyState. Then, lets see if it is listed in Programs and Features in Control Panel. If it is still cannot be found or removed, lets install Windows installer cleanup via the following link: http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/9/d/e9d80355-7ab4-45b8-80e8-983a48d5e1bd/msicuu2.exe Locate Windows SteadyState related items in the utility and see if it can be removed. Sean Zhu - MSFT

Sean- thanks very much for the response! Your answer has made me think I installed SteadyState under the original account (and only account) present on these library laptops when I started to work on them. I most likely deleted that original account after I created the permanent admin account. I installed that uninstaller utility and it does not list SteadyState. Looks like I have created a massive problem for myself :-( Do you guys have any other ideas? John

Hi John, you can search Windows SteadyState related items in registry and remove them. After that, please try to install it again. If any error occurs, please let us know. Sean Zhu - MSFT

Sean - cleaning up the registry of the many SteadyState entries was the silver bullet! I reinstalled it and it seems to run okay - thank you very much for the assistance :-) John

I do have a similar problem but: a) I did have the Disk Protection Tool instaled. b) I did change the partition of the HD (yes, I now I am something stupid to do it without stop the Steady State). c) After Reboot, The Disk Protection tool doesn't work anymore. I tried to reinstall and can't do. I tried to uninstall and can't too, because the HD protection is still active (but relly it doesn't work). Please, help me !!