Is there any way to permanently remove Outlook Express from a Windows 2000 machine?

I don't want to have it, but there is no way you can remove it. It is not listed as a program, so it's not in Add/Remove programs list. It's also not a Windows component, because it's not listed there either. It doesn't have an uninstall routine, so it's now Windows compliant at all. Worse of all, it's a virus: the moment you try to delete it, it forces your machine to leave every other thing it may be doing, and reinstalls it. The machine is brought at its knees at this point - becomes very slow and is unusable for several minutes. The directory is protected, and can't be deleted or renamed even while empty (even though it remains empty for just a few seconds) because it reports sharing violation then.

After that, it does the following things:
- opens up Outlook Express, splash screen and all
- opens up the wizard to get the email address and other stuff from you. Exiting this wizard only brings more wizards, like
- import address book wizard, need to exit that as well, but
- address book is open (I didn't ask it to open, these viri are doing things behind my back)
- after finally closing the address book and OE, it asks "OE is not registered as your default e-mail client, do you want it registered", yes/no and a conspicuous checkbox with "don't ask this question again". Knowing how previous versions behaved, it would means that if you answered Yes and it was checked, it would automatically reregister itself each time in the future, which would also mean it is monitoring your system to see if change took place (or would at least do so whan launched). As a side note, Netscape doesn't have this sort of question anymore, and while it had it, the checkbox read "don't perform this check anymore", which was far less obtrusive, IMO.
Reinstalling W2000 doesn't help, because it never asks you whether you want Outlook Express or not. You get it, volens-nolens, and you get it twice: once installed, and once as the guardian copy in case you try to get rid of it.

I don't really care about these five megs, but they are on the C: drive, which is never big enough, and, besides, I still think that any program which is not a part of the operating system should be treated as a virus if it installs itself behind your back.

Therefore, Norton, AVG, McAffee - any help here?

KEEP RANT ON