RealVNC just appeared after restart

Question

Just restarted my machine and noticed VNC server icon in my systray. I definitely didn't do it, unless I had an out of body experience and did it in my sleep. I also don't remember doing anything that might have caused it (i.e. installing dodgy or going to questionable sites).

Just as I wrote this I realised that I did install and then uninstalled AVS video converter. It kinda struck me as one of those dodgy shareware apps. First, the details about limitations of the free version were not on the download site. It also created a bunch of other entries in Add/Remove Software - like all the auto update type things.

Update. I uninstalled RealVNC and it keeps the shortcut in the Start Menu. If I click the shortcut it starts up MSI and just installs it again! The propertis of the shortcut say Target Type: "Application(installs on first use)". Can I just delete the shortcut to completely get rid of it or is there something else on the disk that I should zap?

Answer 1

I have not seen this myself. It does sound like a slight-of-hand trick, and a pretty bad one at that, as alert users like yourself can see the effects in your systray.

If you want to confirm that RealVNC was installed by the AVS video converter app, a simple test would be to check the date on the RealVNC dir in your Program Files or other install directory.