Adnan248999 Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 (edited) Completely Removing Programs Ok, I?m sure most of you have come across a time where you?ve been surfing the internet testing out various programs to suit your needs until you end up deciding to uninstall them. As friendly as the uninstall procedures look for many programs out there, their friendliness is just an illusion of simple point and click GUI (Graphical User Interface). The truth is that many programs leave junk which you may not even know about. Having said that I?m sure you?ve must come across a point at where you tried to remove a program via the Windows Add/Remove programs menu to end up with nothing but an error stating ?Unable to locate uninst.ini? or something like that. Well the good news is there is a way too remove them completely and in this article I will walk you through on how to do it safely too. After you uninstall your chosen program always make sure you reboot your computer as this helps to clean up and unnecessary junk left behind for example saved settings, empty folders. It always pays off to be sure so check the Programs Files folder by clicking on Start then run and typing ?Program Files?. Once there look for the folder whose name represents the program you?ve just uninstalled so for example Spysoft?s Spy would probably have a folder named Spysoft. Delete this folder as it is no longer needed. Now we need to remove the registry keys created when you installed those programs. For this I use Crap Cleaner which can be found at http://www.ccleaner.com Crap cleaner provides users with the option to remove (the name is quite self explanatory) crap. It can remove temporary files such as internet cache and file history using advanced techniques too. What we need it for however is to fix the invalid registry entries which can lead to system crashes. Run CCleaner and click the ?issues? tab, make sure all items are checked and then click ?scan for issues? after the progress bar reaches 100% you should see a list of issues detected. Right click on any item in the list and choose ?select all? then click the ?Fix selected issues?? button. You will be prompted to back up your registry, while you can rest assured that your system will be running fine even after the fixes it?s still sensible to back up your registry so choose ?yes? and save the file someplace like ?My Documents? or something with a filename of ?regbackup? or anything that you see easy to refer to this file later if needed. Once done you will be prompted again on what action to take. For example I got the following message: ?The file or directory referenced at: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\PrintMe Internet Printing\ could not be located. These references are often left behind after uninstalling software.? Now you have the option to Fix All Selected Issues or just fix that single one I always choose ?Fix All Selected Issues?. Again you will be asked if you are sure you want to do this, click ?ok? then once fixing is completed click close. Now that?s the invalid registry entries solved it?s time to remove those stubborn items found in the Add/Remove Programs menu in Windows. For this I am again using CCleaner. Click ?Options? then click the ?Uninstall Programs? tab, from there you have the option of uninstalling programs and also deleting those stubborn entries which are no longer applicable. Well that?s all there is to it really, I hope this article has helped. I?ve tried to keep non technical for the novices out there and as a note I have done this several times to my system and it is running just fine with no problems at all. Edited June 12, 2004 by Adnan248999 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oik Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 and the guide for osx: 1. drag application to the trash. 2. empty the trash. for the paranoid: 1. complete steps 1 & 2 from above. 2. search disk for application name (or variation) 3. delete .plist, application support, logs, etc. 4. empty the trash. for the extremely paranoid: replace all "empty the trash" with "finder > secure empty trash" ahh, simplicity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Widdowmaker Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 And the guide to program in OSX: 1. Cant do it. And one to game in OSX: 1. You like pong? Super Breakout? i *THINK* they finnaly ported Space Invaders and Dig Dug to OSX. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Decryptor Veteran Posted June 12, 2004 Veteran Share Posted June 12, 2004 And the guide to program in OSX: What do you mean? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
semifamous Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 And the guide to program in OSX:1. Cant do it. And one to game in OSX: 1. You like pong? Super Breakout? i *THINK* they finnaly ported Space Invaders and Dig Dug to OSX. Gee, you mean you don't want to play Warcraft 3? To everyone else: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krmathis Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 Adnan248999, thats a nice and simple unistall guide for the MS Windows users! :D Specially the part about cleaning up the registry. Because many people dont know how much "garbage" that stay put after uninstalling an application... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adnan248999 Posted June 12, 2004 Author Share Posted June 12, 2004 Adnan248999, thats a nice and simple unistall guide for the MS Windows users! :DSpecially the part about cleaning up the registry. Because many people dont know how much "garbage" that stay put after uninstalling an application... Thanks, I tried to keep it really simple there are other ways too but they require too much fiddling around and for novices it might be a bit troublesome so I kept it real basic. This wouldn't have to happen if *cough*Microsoft*cough* had paid more attention to their OS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elmo Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 thanks :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary King Posted June 25, 2004 Share Posted June 25, 2004 Very helpful, I don't know what else to say :) I love this program all of a sudden after reading about it 5 minutes ago, and I contacted the program's author to include a link to this page since it's such a useful guide, and he doesn't have a guide anywhere on his site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigdog Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 Very useful article! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ApostolicFire Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 ok.... I just did all the stuff. Looks like a good program (i've heard about it before, but wasn't sure if i should try it out). I'm gonna reboot and my computer still works lol. (I know of another program *cough* Norton SystemWorks* that did stuff like registry cleaning and it messed up some of my classmate's computers) Edit: my computer survived. so I give this program a thumbs up. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adnan248999 Posted June 28, 2004 Author Share Posted June 28, 2004 Glad you like the guides guys thanx for the comments I'm pleased its came in useful to some Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
islanq Posted July 9, 2004 Share Posted July 9, 2004 and the guide for osx:1. drag application to the trash. 2. empty the trash. for the paranoid: 1. complete steps 1 & 2 from above. 2. search disk for application name (or variation) 3. delete .plist, application support, logs, etc. 4. empty the trash. for the extremely paranoid: replace all "empty the trash" with "finder > secure empty trash" ahh, simplicity. And for the extremely etremely paranoid,. invest in a high powerd magnet and stick to hard drive for 10 seconds then pull alway! hahaha (i hope no one is really stupid enough to do that) [/joke] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L3thal Veteran Posted July 9, 2004 Veteran Share Posted July 9, 2004 Very good, though I clean up the registry manually :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xXTOKERXx Posted July 9, 2004 Share Posted July 9, 2004 are u a tebetin buddhist? no pain no gain? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XanoZuke Posted July 9, 2004 Share Posted July 9, 2004 Nice guide, I'll try it when I get to home. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToryAmos Posted July 9, 2004 Share Posted July 9, 2004 total uninstall then crap cleaner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verbose. Posted July 9, 2004 Share Posted July 9, 2004 Nice guide. I haven't been using CCleaner for very long so I didn't know about the removal of unnecessary programs in add/remove, so I learned something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Grey Member Posted July 10, 2004 Member Share Posted July 10, 2004 Nice! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
futb0l Posted July 10, 2004 Share Posted July 10, 2004 lol, the name of that software is funny "Crap Cleaner"... I might actually have a go at this since the majority of my stuff deleted are probably not completely removed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pink Floyd Veteran Posted July 10, 2004 Veteran Share Posted July 10, 2004 hehe yeah nice name Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Lyle Global Moderator Posted July 10, 2004 Global Moderator Share Posted July 10, 2004 i like crap cleaner. except i made it crash... "run time error 603" i think it was Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kainashi Posted July 10, 2004 Share Posted July 10, 2004 thanks for the guide. going to give this a try one of these days. (Y) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eatinwokout Posted July 14, 2004 Share Posted July 14, 2004 I'm going to give crapcleaner a try right now and see if I can clean up my system a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adnan248999 Posted July 15, 2004 Author Share Posted July 15, 2004 Hehe , pleased its helping some Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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