Thanks for your suggestion - I did finally land on an answer - the Nero
Cleaner Tool
http://www.nero.com/nero7/enu/Nero7_CleanTool.html

And before finding this cleaning tool, I did try reinstalling Nero and it
wouldn't work - I kept getting the message 'ShellManager Database may be
Corrupted'.
But now that Nero has finally been fully removed, I will try again.

Many Thanks, Frank


"Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM" <franksaunders@mvps.org> wrote in message
news:ukgitREkHHA.588@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> "Frank Bright" <Brightbelt@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:6D005A77-338B-4280-9F36-EAFA4D55594F@microsoft.com...
>> Ok, bear with me because this one's a lou-ie....and it may not be Vista's
>> problem....but I can't say for sure,
>> and I should say upfront that this may take several back and forth's on
>> messaging to iron it out, so stick with me please
>> if you can...
>>
>> I'm on Vista Home Premium 32-Bit - I had upgraded from XP sp2 MCE on this
>> HP Media pavilion desktop.
>> And this upgrade has been very stable - I seemed to get the drivers
>> right, so why worry, right?
>>
>> Well I stuck in the HP Vista Upgrade Assistant DVD, which you ARE
>> supposed to do after the upgrade.
>> Even though I had already done all the Vista drivers manually from the HP
>> site, I thought maybe the HP DVD
>> might iron a few more things out. Bad idea.
>>
>> Well, I find out after running the DVD that it installed all these Roxio
>> programs which I swear were not there,
>> not even in my default programs out of the box. It must have been some
>> kind of "Vista Surprise" planned
>> by HP and Roxio. Keep in mind that I had already had Nero 7.8.5.0
>> installed and it was working fine as far as I know.
>>
>> So I proceed to uninstall Roxio and stuff about the DMA Checker comes
>> up - "Chose whether to turn the DMA Checker off and restart it later or
>> to leave it going and do a reboot" I choose to turn the DMA Checker off.
>> Then when I restart, my PC tells me that the DMA Checker is missing. I
>> have no idea how to turn it back on.
>>
>> Then I find that my Nero 7.8.5.0 program, which I think was running fine,
>> won't open. Not only that, I can't do a repair on Nero -- Add/Remove says
>> there is a Apps/local file missing.
>> I tried repairing Nero with a CD of the program and no luck. And also,
>> this is the kicker....Add/Remove WON'T let me Un-Install Nero !!!
>> Here, I get a red X window that says "Shellmanager database file is
>> corrupt or missing"
>>
>> I have tried 4 different System Restores - going to back before running
>> the HP DVD and other time spots - which all seemed to work ok, but I
>> still could not get into the Nero Program or get Nero to start. I double
>> click the Nero icon and nothing happens. Maybe I should just redownload
>> it and install it on top of what I have here now, but that seems kind of
>> a shakey approach.
>>
>> I also tried uninstalling Nero in safe mode and a window came up and said
>> that my Windows Installer is not available there.
>>
>> I appreciate any help and I apologize for the long post - I hope I
>> explained all this somewhat clearly....Frank
>>
>
> Reinstalling Nero is what I would do. Did you not save the install
> program?
>
> --
> Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM
> http://www.fjsmjs.com
>
>
>