Uninstalling a Program and Deleting a File

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Uninstalling & Deleting

One of the more common questions asked of tech support personnel is 'How do I get rid of something I put on my computer?'

The above question might mean 'How do I uninstall a program?', but it could also mean 'How do I delete a file or folder?' What's the difference? The difference has everything to do with what you did to get the 'something' on your computer.

'Did you download a program such as a game or utility from the Internet and then go through the steps to install it?' or 'Do you have a folder on your computer that you put documents in, and now you simply want to delete it?' Each has a different handling.

Let's start with a simple File or Folder deletion....

Let's say you have a folder on your computer where you store documents and you want to delete that folder and all the files in it. Go to where the folder is located such as on your desktop, right-click on the folder, a Context Menu will appear. Select and click on 'Delete' then click 'Yes' to confirm the deletion. Simple.

Note that this handling deletes the Folder and all its contents, so make sure that you want to delete everyting inside the folder as well as the folder itself. The Folder and all contents are sent to the 'Recycle Bin'. If you suddenly realize you made a mistake you can double-click to open the Recycle Bin, right-click on an item and click 'Restore'. Note that once items are deleted from the Recycle Bin, they're gone for all practical purposes.

That's the simple handling. It's a bit more complex if the file you want to delete is at an unknown location on your computer. The trick then becomes first, 'How do I find the File?' Once you find it, the proceedure is the same as noted above. It 'sounds' silly that one wouldn't know where something is located on their computer, but it's actually not silly at all; a computer hard drive is a big place when you think of it in terms of the number of potential locations where a file might 'get lost'. In fact the single most often asked question in tech support units is 'How do I find a File?' (see our notes on this) Using these notes you should be able to find the file or folder you want to delete.

One final note, many users who ask 'How do I get rid of something' really want to know 'How do I clean up my computer from all my surfing activity?' And that's a valid concern, surfing the web does result in pieces of information being stored on your system; this can be in the form of cookies, Temporary Folders, or more arcane items such index.dat files. To delete these items and fully clean up a computer see our Section on Computer Cleanup.

OK, what about uninstalling a program?

Removing an installed program requires a much different handling than removing a file or folder; for instance, deleting the icon for a program from your desktop will not remove the whole program.

To remove a program from your computer you have to uninstall it. As it sounds, an uninstall is the reverse of an install, and in fact that's exactly what you are doing - you are reversing the proceedure carried out when the program was installed. Vital because when a program is installed the program places information at various locations on your computer, if all of those items are not removed, they accumulate and ultimately slow down your system.

To uninstall a program go to 'Start' -> 'Settings' -> 'Control Panel' -> double-click the 'Add or Remove Programs' icon -> scroll down to the item you want to remove and click on it to select it -> click the 'Change/Remove' button and then proceed through answering the questions and clicking to complete the uninstall.

You may be asked if you want a 'Manual' or 'Automatic' Uninstall. Typically doing an Automatic Uninstall is fine, though certainly you may want to try the Manual Uninstall - a Manual Uninstall may sometimes provide options to remove items not removed in the Automatic Uninstall, but also has a tendency to confuse and concern a newer user, since it asks whether you want specific files uninstalled or not.

You may also be asked if you want to delete a DLL file 'No longer in use'. The very safe thing to do is not delete these DLL files just in case they are needed by another program - though if a DLL file is missing, simply re-installing the application that needs it will re-install the needed DLL file.

Once you have followed the uninstall proceedure you may be asked to re-boot your computer as the final step - certain file types require a re-boot in order to be removed.

A program may list its uninstaller in the Start Menu under 'Programs'. Go to 'Start' -> 'Programs' -> go to the program you want to uninstall, there you may find a sub-menu that includes the uninstaller for that program. Note that occasionally the uninstaller for a particular program is only listed in the Start Menu and not in 'Add and Remove Programs Applet'.