Expert: Brian Benosky - 3/12/2009

Question
I am using "system mechanic" by iolo and think it's great. My question is I have "system guard" on the tray..?
However, about a week ago, change some settings and now I see an icon on my system's tray of like a dog in a white box. When I put my cursor on it, it says, "system guard TM". I looked it up and it's part of IOLO which makes the System Mechanic. But I don't want it running all the time, unless it's needed.
Also, I'm very confused because when I went to google and punched in System guard, when it was related to Iolo's System Mechanice, all seemed fine. BUT, when the many of 1000's listings came up for "System Guard 2009"...they're all about, "How to unistall" and how dangerous it is. I looked at the photo's of System Guard 2009 and I have nothing like that, nor does it look like that. I only have the little icon of the dog in the white box.

My compouter is running faster than ever and I fear deleting something that may be part of "system mechanic", and mess things up...as I try to do a long delete process for what might not even be item I have in my system tray?

Does ANYBODY know where I'm coming from or can help me decide if this is part of Iolo's System Mechanic and thus should keep it, or decide if it's this terriorizing program called, "System Guard 2009" which like I said has all these function and open up when you click on it, none of which I have.
The only feature my icon allows for is:
1. Diable Alerts
2. Allow all for One Minute
3. Block all for One Minute
4. Shut down system guard
There is no separate program in either my control panel's ADD/REMOVE, nor does it show up in SYSTEM FILES....

And the following link, from "Iolo" the producer of "System Mechanic", shows the icon I'm talking about. Can there be a fucntion in Sys Mech, that happens to be called, "System Guard", and I should just well enough alone?
Here's the link from iolo that shows the program icon and what it does:
"http://www.iolo.com/help/ss/SystemGua...
I'm running System Mechanic 8.5.4.
Please help me as it's driving me crazy.
    Thank you very much, Jay

Answer
Hi Jay

You have the legitimate SystemGuard, which is a part of System Mechanic.  System Guard 2009 is a malicious rogue anti-virus program.  You should keep the SystemGuard running, as it protects key settings from being changed without your knowledge.  If you do not wish the program to run, you can uninstall the component by going to the Configure System Guard tab and clicking uninstall.  If you have any further questions, just let me know.

Brian