Re: Best practices to uninstall a program in xp professional

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

Hackergrrrrl wrote:
I have this question but 2 answers. Can someone clarify this for me, please? What is the best way to do a clean, complete uninstall of a program in windows xp? (I need to remove a logitech mouse program because it
interferes with a kensington trackball program I need to install).

Here are my 2 answers:

--Just go to ADD/REMOVE programs and uninstall and that's it (easy!)

-- you must use windows uninstall program or equivalent (is this some sort of wizard of something?

Thanks!

Hackergrrrrl

Add Remove programs ought to work. Windows install scripts are supposed to make a disk file containing a list of all the files copied to hard drive, all the registry keys planted, and any other changes made to the target (victim?) computer. The un install merely reads the list and reverses the LISTED changes. Some (many?) install scripts forget to list all the changes (damages?) they do at install time. In these cases the un install program will be less than successful at blowing the program away. Sometimes it's just a matter of some files left behind on disk. Sometimes time consuming invisible programs are left active.
If you are faced with a machine that seems to have some distructive remanents of an uninstalled program gumming up the works, here are a few things to try.
1. Use Regedit to search and destroy keys containing the program's name, the program's maker's name, or pointers to the zapped program's home directory.
2. Run taskmanager and look for active tasks that aren't part of windows or some other installed program. You can google the names of unknown tasks to find out what they are. You can speed this up by downloading "process explorer", a jazzier task manager that googles the net for just right clicking on the unknown task name.
3. Use windows explorer to zap any files or folders of the zapped program that still exist on disk.
4. Pray a lot.

David Starr
.

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