Looking for a good free uninstaller.

By pseudomelon on July 29, 2009 6:14:15 PM from

I've only had this computer a couple months, and have already maxed out one partition of the hard drive with things I don't really want. I've been told (but never bothered to check) that uninstallers companies put in with their software are inferior to their generic freeware counterparts. Anyone know if this is true?

+24 Karma | 10 Replies

I recommend Revo LINK set on moderate to remove unneeded software. Only delete what it marks in bold text and you'll have no trouble with it. Add/remove Programs and most software built in uninstallers leave a lot of junk behind. Revo makes it easier to clean things up,imho. Give it a try.

CCleaner is also very good, and free.

thats the one i couldn't do without ccleaner

REVO is the way to go. Ccleaner leaves to much behind.

There is also the old standby Add and Remove function that comes with Windows. Yeah everyone will say don't use that, find something else. I also have CCleaner.

Now a qustion for you, why would you have one partition of your HD with things you don't really want? Just delete them. I know, I had to ask.

My experience is if the software comes with an uninstaller, use it. I could be wrong but usually they are pretty good at getting every piece that is associated with the software.

I stll run a registry clean just to make sure that nothing is left over.

Can there still be things left, sure.

There is no such thing as a good uninstaller. Every uninstall usually leaves literally hundreds of keys in your registry. Secondly if the install included a new service then that service can *never* be uninstalled, at best it can only be disabled.

Backup doesn't work. Restore points don't work. All leave unwanted tracks in your registry and never completely restore your boot drive to its pre-install state.

The only thing that really works is to have a utility that can boot your PC to a floppy or CD thereby keeping the boot drive inert and can then take an image of your boot drive prior to installing new software. Then if anything goes wrong in the install process or if it turns out that you wished you never installed that latest piece of memory leaking crap software in the first place then you can simply restore your pre-install drive image and truly have the identical state that you had prior to the install. There is nothing else that can make that same guarantee.

I personally use Norton Ghost 2003 which is the last version of Ghost that gave you a boot floppy that could boot your PC and copy the entirety of your boot drive to another drive or perhaps a hidden partition on your boot drive or even to a DVD. I doubt that Ghost 2003 is still commercially available but I would hope that the equivalent functionality could still be bought somehow or other. I personally would never believe that something that purports to cleanup after the fact could ever really completely restore your original state.

Acronis True Image, Mumbles.

My experience is if the software comes with an uninstaller, use it. I could be wrong but usually they are pretty good at getting every piece that is associated with the software.

Revo uses the programs own uninstaller,then scans for leftovers.Some leave a little behind,some leave hundreds if not thousands of bits and peices behind. Add/Remove does no better.

Mumbles way is the best method, maybe something to look into after you get your rig cleaned out.

My advice,next time you want to try out software,use a friends computer.

Ugh. Windows Installer is the worst. Takes forever. It even says "cancelling" when you hit cancel.

Quoting Philly0381,

reply 5

There is also the old standby Add and Remove function that comes with Windows. Yeah everyone will say don't use that, find something else. I also have CCleaner.

Now a qustion for you, why would you have one partition of your HD with things you don't really want? Just delete them. I know, I had to ask.

My experience is if the software comes with an uninstaller, use it. I could be wrong but usually they are pretty good at getting every piece that is associated with the software.

I stll run a registry clean just to make sure that nothing is left over.

Can there still be things left, sure.

Quoting Wizard1956,

reply 8

My experience is if the software comes with an uninstaller, use it. I could be wrong but usually they are pretty good at getting every piece that is associated with the software.
Revo uses the programs own uninstaller,then scans for leftovers.Some leave a little behind,some leave hundreds if not thousands of bits and peices behind. Add/Remove does no better.

Mumbles way is the best method, maybe something to look into after you get your rig cleaned out.

My advice,next time you want to try out software,use a friends computer.

Well it actually ended up this way because of my family When I built the computer, I knew people would be rushing away from the old Pentium 4 with 1 gig of ram to use the 'new' computer, so I set a partition that -I- use, which I keep clean, and a partition that everyone else uses, which is maxed out with junk files that I'm going through deleting. Thanks for the advice everyone, I'll clean it out with REVO this time, then next time I'll probably just reformat the whole damned thing.

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Looking for a good free uninstaller.