I have windows 2000 pro. My stepson installed mIRC and I wish to take it off. I have unistalled it and it still comes on everytime I boot my pc. It is not in my startup menu. Any suggestions

Have you tried uninstalling from the control panel (Add/Remove Programs)
Is it being reinstalled without you knowing?
Gone through and removed it? i.e removing from your start menu, C Drive? then rebooting?

Note: These are just merely suggestions and/or possibilities!

Intentionally installed copies of mIRC should certainly uninstall thru the control panel as was suggested. However, if it doesnt, you need to consider the possibility of a trojan, several of which carry of copy of mIRC in their payload.
I would go to this free and safe online scanner at this web page and scan your puter in that case. You can also read about a couple of these at this thread and this thread

i did have a TROJAN IRC virus, but norton seems to have cleared it out as it is no longer coming up as a virus during scan. i can't find mirc anywhere on the computer to delete it or uninstall it. it is not in the add/remove list and there is no reference to it on the c drive... any ideas? i want to take it off... or i at least want to disable it so it doesn't pop up each time the computer starts up.

thank you for your help!

Some of those trojans create registry entries that you have to manully remove... do you remember the name of the trojan that was found? The scanner usually says what it is, and also gives urls for more info on it. If it was IRCbounce, then this thread gives you some info on registry, and if it was vbs_moon.k, the trend housecall site i gave in last post has info on the entries that one makes. Sadly, there are others as well. You really NEED to remove it completely, including the registry entires. Just be really careful editing in the registry, i always suggest doing a backup first.

thank you for your reply. it was called ircTROJAN. i was afraid to edit the registry and since it scanned clean, i thought the virus was removed... how do i back up the registry on windows 2000?

also... i don't think i know where it mentioned the virus anymore... since norton doesn't detect it anymore (to tell me a file name), how will i find it in the registry? do a find for irc??? any ideas?

did you tried Ad-aware form Lavasoft ? i'm not sure it will detect it but it can clean registry if it find it. Another tool you can try is Pest Patrol. it is free use for 30 days. also, see irc torjan info from symantec