AOL Triton Active Update Fix

Note: Everyone should check the later comments below out, as people are always leaving different ways to remove the AOL popup from this and later versions.

If anyone has been getting the damn active update popup from AOL Instant Messenger, Triton version, here is the way to get rid of it.

Anotify.exe is the program that controls all of those annoying popups you get asking you to upgrade this, upgrade that, the only reason I have ever upgraded to a newer version of AOL is because I’m using a different computer and can’t find the last version of the software, so I have to download the latest version. Triton is really a resource hog and those popups suck. So, here is easiest way to get rid of them.

Search for anotify.exe on your system, when you find it, rename it or delete it. Bamm, right there AOL, hehe. Now gotta reboot and make sure it doesn’t reinstall the software. Nope.

Allright, no more AOL Triton popups, woohoo. I was so tired of hearing my kid complain about it, I had already moved to Trillian, so I still had to figure out how to stop it for AOL IM users.

Added: I had a friend who was having the same problem, yet her system did not contain anotify.exe, it ended up being aolsoftware.exe, so I renamed it and it quit working. If you cannot find anotify or aolsaoftware, when you get the popup, hit ctrl-alt-del and click on applications on the box that pops up, then find the active update program, right click it and click on Go to Process. This will give you the name it is currently using, so you can search for the file and rename it or delete it. No more popups.

This is why I hate to update AIM at all, everytime I have upgraded, it’s gotten slower, hogs more resources and is more intrusive.

Added: Don noted in the comments that it has been a few months and I might want to clarify a few things. It’s entirely possible a user might find BOTH anotify.exe and aolsoftware.exe, you should be able to delete both with no problems. In order to find them via Windows Explorer, you have to include system folders in the search, and possibly also hidden files and folders. If you go into Windows Explorer, click on tools, then on folder options, if will bring up the properties screen, click on the view tab at the top and select show hidden files and folders, and it should include those the next time you search.

This is some stuff I probably should’ve included to start with, I always include the hidden stuff in mine etc, so, if some of these instructions have been confusing I apologize. I will rewrite this page one day to make sure it is a lot better.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: AOL, Instant Messaging, Research 152 Comments » November 2006