[Spambayes] SPAMBAYES 2.2 a4tar

[Tim Peters]

[ElaineSchubert at aol.com]
> I have AOL and downloaded SpamBayes 1.1 a4.tar -- When I was downloading, I
> had used the category for AOL users and it said something to the effect they
> could not do that and instead another category downloaded.

Sounds to me like you use Windows, in which case downloading a .tar
file probably was not a useful thing to do.  A .tar file is an archive
file, much like a .zip file (are you familiar with zip files?  most
Windows users are).  A tar file, like a zip file, is not a program:
it's just a data file /containing/ other files.  It doesn't "do"
anything -- it just sits there passively until /you/ do something
explicitly to extract the files it contains, and execute those.


> Since that time, I have had no end of AOL going down and having a difficult
> time getting it back on line again -- I want to remove this spambayes
> program but I cannot find it on my computer or on my Control panel.-- it's
> on my desktop but when I right click it, it says cannot open because the
> program to open it is unknown.

That's because Windows has no idea what to do with a tar file.  Recent
versions of Windows do know how to unpack zip files, but tar files are
native to Unix systems.

Please note again:  a tar file is /just/ a data file.  It's not a
program.  It is not executing on your machine.  It's just sitting
there, doing nothing.

The consequence is that having this tar file sitting on your machine
almost certainly has nothing to do with your current AOL problems.  I
understand that the AOL problems seemed to begin near the time you
downloaded the tar file, but correlation is not causation, and you
should take it from an expert that there's no plausible way in which
this tar file could be causing /any/ problems for you.  Feel free to
delete the tar file, but it won't make any difference to how AOL is
behaving for you.


> This obviously is not working for me and I have to somehow get it
> uninstalled.

A tar file is not installed, so there's nothing /to/ uninstall.


>  I do medical transcription and I cannot be wasting all this time keeping
> AOL on line.
>
> HELP!!!!

I don't expect you'll make progress until you contact AOL to help you
diagnose the problems you're having /with/ AOL.  You did not install
SpamBayes, you simply downloaded a passive data file that is of no use
to you (still assuming you're using some version of Windows).  A
passive data file can neither help you nor hurt you (well, it takes up
some space on your hard drive, but that's all it does).

Good luck!