Tips For Easy Software Uninstallation on A New PC

Friday 21st August 2009 9:03 PM

Tips For Easy Software Uninstallation on A New PC

Most of the time, when you buy a new Windows PC, especially a branded PC with a pre-loaded operating system, you may find it to be full of several trial software programs. These promotional programs packaged with your operating system may also try to capture you attention by displaying unwanted pop-ups and "buy me" icons on the desktop. Additionally, even you may install programs such as Office 2007 trial version or a Windows Media Player update that you may want to uninstall later. In this article, we are going to introduce you to some of the common methods that you can use to uninstall unwanted programs from your computer.

The first and the most common method is to open the Control Panel and then select the Add or Remove Programs option. In the Add or Remove Programs dialog box that opens, select the program you want to uninstall from the Currently installed programs list, and then select the Remove or Change/Remove button to launch the uninstall process. Many Windows updates are not visible in the list that is displayed by default. For example, the option to uninstall Windows Media Player update may not be visible in the list. To display these updates in the currently installed programs list, select the Show Updates check box at the top of the Add or Remove Programs dialog box.

Many applications put the program uninstall shortcut in the Start menu programs list. You can select this shortcut also to uninstall the program you want to remove.

Although useful, Add or Remove Programs usually fails to perform a complete cleanup of the system after uninstalling programs, especially large programs such as Office 2007 and Norton products. To help you completely remove these programs, their manufacturers have made available their specific uninstallers to help you completely remove all related files. For example, for Office 2007 uninstall you can download and use the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility and to uninstall a Norton product you can download and use the Norton removal tool.

Many third-party uninstaller programs are also available to help you scan your entire hard disk and sweep all unwanted data left behind by the programs you uninstalled earlier. A good uninstaller program is also useful to help you get rid of unwanted data copied to your system by troublesome spyware and adware programs.

Many stubborn programs are really difficult to remove. They add so many entries in the Windows registry that whatever you do and whichever method you use, they install back on the system. Many times, the situation gets so bad that you are forced to reinstall your system to get rid of these unwanted programs. To prevent this, it is recommended that you use a reliable registry cleaner tool to perform a thorough scan of the registry and weed out all unwanted, invalid and malicious information from it. Using a registry cleaner tool, you can also defrag the registry. This helps in reducing the size of the registry by getting rid of all the empty registry keys left behind after the programs are uninstalled. Defragging also helps in optimizing the registry by consolidating the registry files and helping you enhance the performance of your Windows PC.