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Utility Manager & Narrator
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Bob View Drop Down
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Joined: 14 Feb 2008
Location: Piney woods Tex
Posts: 11118 		  Quote Bob Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Utility Manager & Narrator
    Posted: 30 Jan 2010 at 10:35am
I need a little advice.  On this newly acquired machine with MCE Microsoft Sam of the Narrator program has taken over the voice duties w/in this machine.  It sounds like R2D2 on steroids and I'd really like to disable it or get rid of it.  I have been into Accessories>Accessibilities>Utility Manager and turned off all that I could see to turn off but the "voice" is still present even though it says Narrator is not running. 
Any hints, advice, solutions, or clues?
TIA
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Don Watkins View Drop Down
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Posts: 22236 		  Quote Don Watkins Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Jan 2010 at 12:23pm

Is it possible it's in start/all programs/startup and getting started automatically there?

From the looks of this it seems to be a very common problem, glad I never turned it on. Perhaps one of the solutions there if it's not in startup.
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Bob View Drop Down
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Posts: 11118 		  Quote Bob Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Jan 2010 at 1:48pm
It's not in startup and I'm looking at other possible fixes .... and thanks.
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Karl_db View Drop Down
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Posts: 29281 		  Quote Karl_db Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Jan 2010 at 10:10pm
"Lots" of solutions at Don's link. I thought of playing with it..to test turning off...but after reading all the problems....decided to leave well enough alone. Good luck.
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Bob View Drop Down
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Posts: 11118 		  Quote Bob Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Jan 2010 at 10:33pm
Yeah, I wouldn't mess with that one.  It seems even the Microsoft Gurus are not sure about the "hows" and the "whys".  BTW, I still have the problem even after editing the registry of of the offender(s). 
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Karl_db View Drop Down
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Posts: 29281 		  Quote Karl_db Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Jan 2010 at 11:23pm
Have you tried sysinterals autoruns?  It's pretty good at showing stuff that others don't.
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Bob View Drop Down
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Posts: 11118 		  Quote Bob Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Jan 2010 at 11:56pm
Downloading now as we speak.  I will gladly try about anything about now.  And I have lost use of my optical mouse and am now using an old tow button roller ball mouse whose ball is reluctant and is most aggravating.  We'll see.
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Karl_db View Drop Down
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Posts: 29281 		  Quote Karl_db Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Jan 2010 at 5:04am
Use a login at boot?

1/ Restart your computer.
2/ At the login page on the lower left of screen you see the ease of
access button.
3/ Left click and bingo a dialogue opens
4/ There you can turn Narrator On/Off.


Don't know if the above is for XP MCE or Vista.
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Bob View Drop Down
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Posts: 11118 		  Quote Bob Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Jan 2010 at 9:05am
No login here but I have seen once or twice the Utility Manager dialogue box on shutdown or startup.  It says all those things are NOT running.  And I did download the sysinternals autorun and it looks incredibly handy, if I could just interpret it.  The glance over I did did not show any ref. to "Narrator"  ... yet.
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Karl_db View Drop Down
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Posts: 29281 		  Quote Karl_db Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Jan 2010 at 9:15am
It's handy. But does involve looking up (googling) those that you don't know.  Hm. Wonder what the name of the narrator stuff is?  
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Karl_db View Drop Down
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Posts: 29281 		  Quote Karl_db Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Jan 2010 at 9:25am
Seems you said you checked your startup folder?  Someplace said to make sure all startup folders are checked...it might be in one besides yours.

Some stuff here perhaps. Startup folders is part way down.

http://www.aumha.org/a/loads.php
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Posts: 29281 		  Quote Karl_db Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Jan 2010 at 9:29am
If you do a search for narrator.exe and rename it/them to a different extension, like narrator.old, what happens?
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Bob View Drop Down
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Posts: 11118 		  Quote Bob Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Jan 2010 at 11:06am
I was hoping to be able to say "That fixed it!" .... but it didn't.
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Don Watkins View Drop Down
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Posts: 22236 		  Quote Don Watkins Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Jan 2010 at 11:44am

I was gonna suggest the rename as well.

Any reference to it in msconfig?
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Bob View Drop Down
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Posts: 11118 		  Quote Bob Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Jan 2010 at 12:33pm
Not that I saw but I'm not real familiar with looking thru all those .INIs.  Nothing stood out though.
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Don Watkins View Drop Down
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Posts: 22236 		  Quote Don Watkins Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Jan 2010 at 12:37pm
Ah, just had a thought, perhaps it's being loaded as a service? Maybe bring up service manager and see if you can disable it and stop it from loading there?
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Karl_db View Drop Down
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Posts: 29281 		  Quote Karl_db Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Jan 2010 at 1:10pm
And check administrative/event logs. 

Did it stay renamed or did Windows file protection fix it back?  Hmm...might consider running a malware scan just to be on the safe side.
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Bob View Drop Down
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Posts: 11118 		  Quote Bob Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Jan 2010 at 1:15pm
Assuming Service Manager is the one under Administrative Tools>Services>Local Services, and assuming that it would be listed as Narrator - then no, it's not there. 
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Bob View Drop Down
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Posts: 11118 		  Quote Bob Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Jan 2010 at 1:22pm
Karl- Right, the narrator.exe in Sys32 will not stay renamed.  At least on two trys. 
And Event viewer said it was protected and changed back to original.  Otherwise nothing of note in Event Viewer.
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Posts: 29281 		  Quote Karl_db Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Jan 2010 at 2:01pm
Exactly what is it doing...excuse me...what is Sam doing?  I'm reading http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306902  which seems to say there is "text to speech" and also "text to speech with narrator". 

So...are we sure it's narrator? Which is why the question about exactly what Sam is up to...
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