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Uninstaller Tips

Factually, if you don't do a lot of installing and uninstalling, then a stand-alone uninstaller may not be a priority, just a convenience. Also, simply creating a shortcut on your desktop directly to add/remove is a help - just drag the add/remove icon from the Control Panel to your desktop, a shortcut will be created.

The frustration with the Windows default uninstaller mainly enters in when one does frequent installs and uninstalls and so one has to wait for the list of programs to populate, scroll to the program and begin the uninstall one program at a time. Not a huge task, but slower than one might like especially if one does frequent uninstalls.  After trying out various uninstallers personally,  I came to the conclusion that a good uninstaller would be a help to me, and so I started my search in earnest.

I watched the development of Advanced Uninstaller Pro for quite awhile - it has the capability to do multiple uninstalls, is fast, and a definite time saver over the default "add/remove" uninstaller. Time savings occur partly because Advanced Uninstaller Pro is simply fast and partly because of the efficiency involved in the immediate display of all program icons - means no scrolling. Plus recent installations are highlighted which comes in surprisingly handy if you have a significant quantity of programs installed on your computer - saves hunting for those icons. And, as I mentioned, you can click a number of programs to be uninstalled and it will uninstall them lickety split one right after another.

There's also a drag and drop option useful when a product doesn't have its uninstaller listed in add/remove. Just drag the offender in by its desktop icon. Advanced Uninstaller will figure out the path to the executable and remove - you'll recognize that as a problem solver if you've ever had the experience of looking in vain for a program under add/remove in the control panel and it's just not there, then you look in the start menu in the programs section to see if the uninstaller is there, not there either. Next you're having to hunt for the program file - by the way, to find a program file, right click on the icon on your desktop, click "properties" and look in "target", there you will see the path to the executable.

Advanced Uninstaller Pro also comes with a registry cleaner, a registry compactor and a "Quick Cleaner" to clean up temp files and IE files etc. Note that you can set up shortcuts to specific tools so they're handy on your desktop - go to "settings" -> "Easy Go Tool Manager" and follow instructions. You can pick and choose your interface and adjust the color.

We also like Your Uninstaller, which offers a bright and clean Mac-like interface, a very handy desktop drag and drop, and boasts some additional cleanup of items left behind by the usual uninstall process. It also includes a temp files cleaner and a startup programs organizer.

Also consider the System Mechanic Uninstaller (part of the System Mechanic Suite). This uninstaller comes in fantastically handy for tough program uninstalls - those few programs that don't respond to the native uninstaller, thus leaving you hung-up unable to standardly remove. In the System Mechanic Uninstaller you can manually uninstall - System Mechanic will hunt down all the files, folders, shortcuts, registry and system configuration entries associated with the program, give you a full report on what it found with options for removal. It's a real headache saver when you need it. In the System Mechanic 7 Suite go to 'Free Up Drive Space' -> 'Remove Installed Programs' -> select 'Uninstall Program Not Listed' and select a program for a manual uninstall. If you happened to own System Mechanic 6 or 5 you may notice that in those editions a user could 'browse' to the executable or program folder, in version 7 that capability is replaced by a list of executables available for manual removal.

We also like RegSupreme for cleanup after standard uninstalls to chase down any missed registry entries. This is a very inexpensive utility, and does an extremely fast and thorough job.

For those who do high volume installs/uninstalls, a VM (Virtual Machine) approach may suit you best. A Virtual Machine is basically a separate computing environment running on a host computer. Hence, any changes made in the Virtual Machine are isolated from the host. Software to accomplish this, such as VMware Workstation, are enterprise quality products but come with enterprise quality price tags. A tag usually a bit in excess of what a home user will consider.

However, a relatively new product called Shadow User and sister product Shadow Surfer may be just right for the home user. Simply, at the end of the Shadow Session, one may choose to discard all changes, which of course includes all registry changes. Interestingly, in such a case one doesn't even need to uninstall the software being tested, the entire software program and any and all changes are simply discarded. Neat.

Last but not least, First Defense ISR is a powerful system recovery tool with which a user creates system-wide snapshots while at the same time anchoring key data files (selected data files stay current across all snapshots). Thus, a user can maintain a 'clean snapshot' of his whole system with up-to-date data files and simply re-boot to it whenever needed. For instance, if a change is made in the current 'working snapshot' which a user then has trouble with, the user can boot to the 'clean snapshot'. First Defense ISR then lets you simply copy 'clean snapshot' to 'working snapshot', only the differences between the two are handled so to make 'working copy' identical to 'clean copy' (so the proceedure occurs quickly). A user can then boot back to 'working snapshot' and has effectively discarded any unwanted changes. Will not run with Kaspersky AV installed. Will not work with rollback products such as Norton GoBack.

Good luck and good computing.