O2 Broadband Assistant

[vadek]

I wonder how necessary it is to have O2 Broadband Assistant (sprtcmd.exe) sitting in my system tray. It doesn't appear to do anything unless I open it and query things, so I wouldn't mind freeing up the 2484K memory by removing it from the startup list.

I also notice that I now have some Dell software on my PC since installing O2 Broadband. I'm not happy about this as I know how keen Dell are to install spyware on their own PCs.

[Mike8]

Most people who are reasonably PC literate will not use the O2 software for just that reason, its just as ok to set the router up manually. There is help on this site to let you do that with confidence.

[Saturday]

The O2 Broadband Assistant doesn't need to be running all the time (or at all actually), so personally I'd uninstall it or at least stop it loading at start up.

I'm a bit confused about your Dell software comment. What is it and what makes you think it could have been installed as a consequence of joining O2?

[vadek]

Originally Posted by Saturday

The O2 Broadband Assistant doesn't need to be running all the time (or at all actually), so personally I'd uninstall it or at least stop it loading at start up.

I'm a bit confused about your Dell software comment. What is it and what makes you think it could have been installed as a consequence of joining O2?

I've unticked sprtcmd.exe at startup.

When installing O2 I'm sure I saw something request startup rights that mentioned Dell. The only thing I can find now is this text that comes with with sprtcmd.exe:

"Description: Self-help support tool for a number of high-speed internet providers and computer suppliers such as Comcast, Qwest and Dell. Identifies and automatically fixes typical problems that may occur with your high-speed internet service. Provided by SupportSoft, Inc".

[Saturday]

Ah - I'm with you now

Yes, the O2 Broadband Assistant is a SupportSoft.inc product but doesn't have anything to do with Dell, other than Dell use it too apparently - so it is mentioned in the description as a marketing tag I guess.

[Hayton]

This is my first post, so I hope this is the right place to ask : in other forums when a thread has run its course it gets officially notified as closed. Do you do that here?

The messages in this thread deal with sprtcmd.exe, and equate it with Broadband Assistant.

I'm on a PC running XP SP3, with 3 user accounts. Two are user accounts with limited privileges, and the third is a SysAdmin account with full Administrator privileges.

In the system tray of each account is a blue O2 icon, which displays "O2 Broadband Assistant" if the mouse hovers over it. So I guess this is sprtcmd. Of the 3 user accounts, Broadband Assistant is only usable from the Administrator account (when I set up the broadband connection this was the only active account). In the other 2 accounts, whenever there is a problem connecting to a webpage, a pop-up window appears stating that BA could not be started because it needs Administrator privileges to run. This is slightly annoying, and it's also annoying that I have to go into the SysAdmin account to run BA - not that it does very much that I can't do using other software packages, except contact O2 and get some bits of system information. It doesn't even recognise that I've got an O2 email account. In short, it's not exactly indispensable. So I want to dispense with it from the user accounts. If I stop it from running will that have any effect on my broadband connection?

There are also 2 other processes which I'm not sure about : bcont.exe and bcont_nm.exe, both of which are from O2, but I don't know what they do. Glarysoft's Process Manager utility says that bcont is Broadband Assistant. Should I start a new thread for a query about these processes? If not, the question is : what do they do? And is it safe to disable them in any of the 3 accounts?

[Saturday]

Originally Posted by Hayton

Do you do that here?

No, we leave threads active.

Originally Posted by Hayton

If I stop it from running will that have any effect on my broadband connection?

It shouldn't have any impact. For safety just disable it from starting up. A utility such as that found in CCleaner makes this very simple and you can see what other processes you have in startup in the registry too.

Originally Posted by Hayton

There are also 2 other processes which I'm not sure about : bcont.exe and bcont_nm.exe, both of which are from O2, but I don't know what they do. Glarysoft's Process Manager utility says that bcont is Broadband Assistant. Should I start a new thread for a query about these processes? If not, the question is : what do they do? And is it safe to disable them in any of the 3 accounts?

I don't use or have the O2 assistant running so can't say for sure but I'd guess they are associated processes - a google search suggests that is so. If you disable sprtcmd and reboot they will probably not load.

[Tony1044]

Or you could use one of Windows' really useful but generally not known about utilities called MSCONFIG

(Click start -> Run and type msconfig and hit Enter)

It is exceptionally useful as on some versions, it allows you to hide all microsoft services so you can see at a glance what is loading as a service that isn't a part of the operating system.

Also it allows you to remove things from startup that are buried in the various run and runonce hives of the registry.

Really a nice bit of software - MS have a habit of this. Free, useful apps that they don't tell anyone about!