How to uninstall the cardspace application?

Question

Hello

I am hoping someone here can help this computer novice.

I am finding that my pc frequently hangs and I need to reboot to get it operational again.
After windows XP is reloaded, there is a message asking if I wish to submit the error message issue to Microsoft and I click send.

I have tried loading Cardspace from the control panel but that generates an error message and I have to reboot.

Basically I would like to uninstall the application but it appears that I would need to uninstall .NET or some such and quite frankly I suspect I need that for one or other application - but I don't know off hand which one.

Can anyone please advise me?
a) how to determine which application requires this .NET stuff (then I can decide whether I can remove the whole thing or not)
b) or how I can delete the cardspace application so that it does not cause the pc to crash. I suspect I am unlikely to ever need it .

I am have an Acer pc running with an AMD Athlon 2400 chip running at 1.99ghz and use windows XP sp2 with 1gb RAM.

Thanks in advance

Michael

Answer 1

Reply to your questions:

 

a) how to determine which application requires this .NET stuff (then I can decide whether I can remove the whole thing or not)

 

There really isn't any easy way to determine which of the applications you're using requires the .NET Framework. Since it is a framework, many programs are written on top of it and uninstalling it will render those programs unusable. You can always try to uninstall it and if all your programs work, then you're good. If you find that a couple of your programs need it, re-installing it isn't too difficult.

b) or how I can delete the cardspace application so that it does not cause the pc to crash. I suspect I am unlikely to ever need it .

 

Since CardSpace is tightly integrated with .NET Framework 3.0 and/or 3.5, the only way to remove CardSpace is to uninstall the .NET Framework. I would however suggest just disabling the service.

Start > Run > services.msc > Windows CardSpace > Properties > Startup type: Disabled.

 

 

 

We would appreciate if you can post the error message you're getting and any error logs related to CardSpace you find in event viewer (Start > Run > eventvwr > Application)

 

//Toland

Answer 2

The first occurrence was on 13/11/2007 but I cannot determine what software I loaded on that day.
=========================
FailFast was invoked.
 Message: The Windows CardSpace service cannot be started on this file system.
 Stack Trace:    at System.ServiceModel.Diagnostics.ExceptionUtility.TraceFailFast(String message, EventLogger logger)
   at System.ServiceModel.Diagnostics.ExceptionUtility.TraceFailFast(String message)
   at Microsoft.InfoCards.Diagnostics.DiagnosticUtility.FailFast(String message)
   at Microsoft.InfoCards.Diagnostics.InfoCardTrace.FailFast(String message)
   at Microsoft.InfoCards.InfoCardService.FailFastIfNoFileSystemSecurity()
   at Microsoft.InfoCards.InfoCardService..ctor()
   at wmain()
   at _wmainCRTStartup()

 Process Name: infocard
 Process ID: 860

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
=========================

The latest occurrence was yesterday 2/1/2008
=========================
FailFast was invoked.
 Message: The Windows CardSpace service cannot be started on this file system.
 Stack Trace:    at System.ServiceModel.Diagnostics.ExceptionUtility.TraceFailFast(String message, EventLogger logger)
   at System.ServiceModel.Diagnostics.ExceptionUtility.TraceFailFast(String message)
   at Microsoft.InfoCards.Diagnostics.DiagnosticUtility.FailFast(String message)
   at Microsoft.InfoCards.Diagnostics.InfoCardTrace.FailFast(String message)
   at Microsoft.InfoCards.InfoCardService.FailFastIfNoFileSystemSecurity()
   at Microsoft.InfoCards.InfoCardService..ctor()
   at wmain()
   at _wmainCRTStartup()

 Process Name: infocard
 Process ID: 3372

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Furthermore, if I click on the Cardspace icon in the Control Panel, I get the following message.

"The windows cardspace cannot be started. You may running a non-NTFS system or the service may have been disabled by your administrator"

Thanks for your advice. I will disable the service as recommended.

Thanks again.

Michael

Answer 3

Maxmillion wrote:

"The windows cardspace cannot be started. You may running a non-NTFS system or the service may have been disabled by your administrator"

It does sound like your disk drive is formatted with FAT32. Now this is a little strange, it's not often that way any more. So as it stands you can't run CardSpace (this requirement is changing, just not yet)

However you shouldn't be seeing crashes, heck it shouldn't try to start at all, and it's very strange that it does start for you.

So two options, uninstall any version of the 3.x .net framework, which will remove CardSpace. However if you need those installed then you will have to change your drive format to NTFS (which is a good idea anyway, it provides better security and other goodness). If you wish to do that you should open a command prompt and enter

convert driveletter: /FS:NTFS

Where driveletter is the drive you have windows installed on. You will need to reboot. Remember this is a file system operation and as such you should have a complete backup of your machine before proceeding (just in case)

Answer 4

If you are indeed using a FAT32 file system for your OS drive (typically C, I'd recommend upgrading to .NET Framework 3.5: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=333325fd-ae52-4e35-b531-508d977d32a6

 

In 3.5, we removed the NTFS requirement from CardSpace. But do note that FAT32 has lower security than NTFS and that was one of the reason we initially didn't want to support FAT32 since CardSpace is an identity related software.

 

//Toland

Answer 5

We have had an app that used text files with a .CRD file extension for about 10 years.  The addition of CardSpace to .net has caused some complications to this.  The main problem is that searching within .CRD text files from Explorer fails.  That is if I goto explorer and search *.crd for some text string which I know exists in text files named .crd on my disk, then Explorer cannot find any matching files.  If however, I do the same search within Visual Studio or with any other text searching utility, it works fine.

Somehow the association of .CRD to Cardspace files has altered the OS search logic for those files.  Even if I remove the file extension associations for .CRD, the search still doesn't work. 

Questions:

1) how can you disable the special search handling for Cardspace files?  I have disabled the Cardspace service and removed the file associations for it.
2) Windows also displays the idcard icon for .CRD files.  That's tolerable but slightly annoying.  Where is that association made?

Thanks for your help

Answer 6

>Since CardSpace is tightly integrated with .NET Framework 3.0 and/or 3.5, the only way
>to remove CardSpace is to uninstall the .NET Framework.

What? Just... what? You're seriously saying that the installation of a framework that applications are supposed to depend on itself depends on an application that MSFT has decided to bundle? MSFT does know it's the 21st century, right? This makes MSFT look either woefully technically incompetent, or willfully disregarding of its users by shoving this appliction down their throats and pretending its a dependency.

This just boggles the mind. I mean, I remember a decade ago when MSFT entangled its IM client  with everything and pleaded ignorance; and when it entangled IE with the OS and pleaded ignorance; but when it's building an actual, honest-to-god, programmer's API and entangles an application with it... well, there just isn't enough ignorance on the planet to explain that.

Sheesh.

Answer 7

I agree that this cardspace nonsense is aggregious.  We are having the same problems.  Program that conflicts with the .CRD extension and we can do nothing about our app in that regard.  Also, we don't like the card space concept being implemented without our knowledge.  Also we are having other problems and have been unable to rule out cardspace.  We want to uninstall card space.  If we didn't have another app that requires .net, we'd uninstall that.

Answer 8

 

Work around below.

We're still using CardFile.  Microsoft shipped this with Windows 3.1, I think, and it got used.  ...and used.   ...and used.

14 Cardfile databases of hundreds and hundreds of addresses and other contact information were compiled.  There is no easy way of moving these to another database format except to re-key them.  The information has been easy to access and we need nothing any more complicated.

So, we extracted the old cardfile exe and have transferred it to each new MS OS we use.  Nobody wants to re-key that information and this has worked well, until now.

This bundled (with .NET) cardspace nonsense blew the old cardfile.exe up.  File association for .crd files no longer works.  Folder Options didn't list the .CRD extension any more.  Adding it didn't seem to help.

If we didn't need .NET for other applications, we'd kill .NET.

 -------------

Here's the work around.

First, make sure that all the .CRD data files conform to the 8.3 naming conventions.  Customers-in-Texas.crd will have to change to custntx.crd.  This is necessary for the work-around to actually work.

While you are at it, change the extension on the data file from .CRD to .CRY as this will avoid your users cranking up cardspace when they inadvertantly click on the data file.

Next, for convenience, stick cardfile.exe in the same directory with the .crd (now .cry) data files. 

Want to avoid future conflicts?  Rename the exe to something like OurCrdFl.exe.

Next, make a shortcut, but do not make it from the data file.  Make a shortcut from the exe file.

Next edit the shortcut.  Make

"(pathname)\OurCrdFl.exe" (in the "Target" dialogue box)

read

"(pathname)\OurCrdFl.exe custntx.cry". 

Rename the shortcut file to custntx (albeit shortcuts are not limited to the 8.3 naming convention).  The suggested name won't see a naming conflict because Windows hides the .LNK extension on shortcuts (even with extensions unhidden.) We didn't use quotes in the dialogue box and there are no spaces and no non-alphanumeric characters in our filenames.  You will need to make a separate shortcut file for each data file.

Use the link to access the cardfile data.

Answer 9

Windows CardSpace
"C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\infocard.exe"

Securely enables the creation, management, and disclosure of digital identities.

Answer 10

I have to same "problem" as bbuffalo.
The workaround is great, except my new Vista 64 operating system will not run the CARDFILE.EXE program.

Just come back with message not compatible with current operating system.
Anyone know whether there is a new x86 (32bit) or 64 bit version of the program (yet?) or if there is an alternate program that can use to read these files.

I really need my cardfile files ...this program has been so useful for quick and easy db storage for so many years!!