Safarp Free Portable Uninstaller

Safarp is a small and fast alternative to the Add or Remove Programs Control Panel applet of Windows 2000/XP. It displays a list of the installed programs and allows one to uninstall / repair them.

Additional features are:

• Search function.
• Obsolete list entries removal.
• Export program list to a file (HTML, RTF, CSV...).
• New report templates can be written to export to other file formats.
• Accessibility via the Control Panel (optional).
• Option to hide the Windows hotfixes.
• Standard Windows interface (no fancy UI that slows down the program).

Utility is absolutely portable, and writes all entries to the application folder.

Website: http://wistinga.online.fr/safarp/

Completely Uninstall Apps with Revo Uninstaller

Where the built-in and sluggish Windows “Add or Remove Programs” option fails, freeware utility Revo Uninstaller will be your best friend. Even when “Add and Remove Programs” option is not failing completely, its performance is far from the best industry standards. It is slow, and it’s leaving registry entries and system files behind, creating a small pile of “garbage” on your computer. So, Revo Uninstaller can be your best friend in all cases when you need to remove any unwanted application installed on your computer.

With its advanced and fast algorithm to scan before and after uninstall you can remove unnecessary files, folders and registry keys left in your computer after you have uninstall an application with its build in uninstaller.

Other power-user tools include an advanced mode to add program-specific Registry key access to the context menu, and a Tools Optimizer containing the Autorun Manager, Windows Tools access screen, and a Junk File finder/killer. The Autorun Manager provides one-stop shopping for start-up tweaking, while Windows Tools pulls together various and disparate basic utilities under one umbrella, and the Junk killer is just killer.

With its unique "Hunter mode" it offers you some simple, easy to use but effective and powerful approaches to manage (uninstall, stop, delete, disable from autostarting) and to get information about your installed and/or running applications.

On top of these goodies, Revo Uninstaller gives you another 8 handy and powerful tools to clean up your system.

Adding to the list of sparkling functionality the fact, that the application is completely free: no cost, no adware, and no spyware. And presence of a portable version that can be run from your external USB drive, makes this utility a must!

Access developer’s website for more information: http://www.revouninstaller.com/

CCleaner Portable - one of the best free cleaning utilities

CCleaner freeware was included in almost all the popular listing of the best free software for the 2007 and 2008 yearly reviews. CCleaner is short for “Crap Cleaner” - a perfectly appropriate name, with the program doing an excellent job of cleaning out unused and temporary files from the system that are accumulated over time during the normal computer use. This also includes quite accurate cleaning of Internet and PC usage tracks like browser cache, recently used files, web sites visited and more. User is able to select the items that he wants to be cleaned, and also specify the particular cookies that should be preserved on the computer. In addition, the program comes with a registry scanner that scans for invalid references with consecutive automatic fixing.

The program is very small, fast, and effective, allowing Windows to run faster, more efficiently and freeing for user a good chunk of the hard disk space. There are five or six video manuals for the software proper use on YouTube, so you can just search for them there, if you prefer detailed visualization approach to get familiar with all program features. As usual, I prefer portable software for personal use, if available, as it does not require installation and can be run from the USB external drive or stick. You can download the portable version, kindly offered by the author.

In the future, you can simply run inquiry for the available updates from inside the program, clicking on the link Check for updates in the lower right corner.

CCleaner assists in the uninstallation process by allowing users to uninstall programs from CCleaner itself. In addition, CCleaner also allows the alteration of start-up programs, similar to the Microsoft Windows MSConfig Utility. Users can disable several start-up programs to free up processor speed at start-up.

CCleaner is available in 35 different languages, and encountering over 225 million downloads, this utility is very popular among users.

Developers’ website: http://www.ccleaner.com/

How to Uninstall Programs in Windows OS

Beginning with Windows 95, all versions of Windows have an Add/Remove Programs control panel that facilitates uninstalling programs. In DOS and Windows 3.1, you were required to manually delete the folders, files, and autoexec.bat and config.sys entries in order to uninstall a program. However, in Windows 95 and later, you are not required to manually uninstall programs.

Why Uninstall Programs in Windows?

You might want to uninstall software on your computer to free up hard drive space or if you are, for example, replacing one antivirus program with another.


Automatic Uninstall through Add/Remove Programs

The following instructions describe how to use the Add/Remove Programs control panel in different Windows Operating Systems:

Windows Vista

1. From the Start menu, select Control Panel.
2. In Classic View, double-click Programs and Features. If using the Control Panel Home view, under "Programs", click Uninstall a program.
3. Select the program you want to remove, and click Uninstall. Alternatively, right-click the program and select Uninstall.

Windows XP in the default XP view

1. From the Start Menu, select Control Panel.
2. Click the Add or Remove Programs icon.
3. Select the program you wish to remove and click Remove.

Windows 2000 and XP in Classic View

1. From the Start menu, select Settings, and then Control Panel.
2. Double-click the Add/Remove Programs icon.
3. Select the program you wish to remove and click Add/Remove.

Using the Uninstall program from the Start menu

If the program you wish to uninstall is not listed among the installed programs, there might be an uninstall program for that item on the Start menu. You can look for such an option by following the instructions below:

1. From the Start menu, select Programs or All Programs.
2. Find the folder for the program you wish to uninstall and highlight it.
3. In many cases, on the menu that appears, you will see an uninstall option.

If the program has neither a listing in the Add/Remove Programs control panel nor its own uninstall program, you might try installing it again, and then trying to uninstall it via the Add/Remove Programs control panel.

Using Uninstall Third-Party Software

Review list of free applications in the Software section of the site menu to choose the one that will automatically perform the software removal for you.


Manual Program Uninstall

Just because Windows XP has the Add/Remove Programs feature it doesn’t mean your application will appear in the list. Furthermore, even if it does appear, it’s no guarantee that the uninstall feature will work. When you run across one of these situations the items listed below will help in getting rid of the application. Be aware that these steps may not remove everything associated with the application and can impact other applications on the computer. Have a backup or restore point and use caution.

To understand the steps needed to perform to remove all (or most of) the traces of the program on the computer, you need to realize what is happening when you install the software.

There are several things that happen during the installation of a program. First, of course, is the copying of files to the specified program folder (which is usually somewhere inside the Program Files folder). Also some files such as shared libraries (.dll files) can be copied into a folder inside Program Files called Common Files and some files such as drivers or shared libraries (again) are copied into the ‘WINDOWS’System32’ and ‘WINDOWS’System32’drivers’ folders. After that the installer makes some changes inside the windows registry. The windows registry is a unified place where all the settings for programs and for windows itself are stored. The installer can make changes inside the registry for several reasons. For example if a shared library needs to be registered. Or if certain types of files need to be associated with the program being installed, so that the user could open them (e.g. if you install Microsoft Word, then you will be able to open Microsoft Word documents). After this is done, a key is added to the windows registry in a place where the Windows Add/Remove tool looks for installed programs. During the installation all these operations are logged in a special file (e.g. setup.log), and the installation program usually puts that file inside the application’s folder along with the uninstaller. When a user tries to remove a program through the Add/Remove tool, windows looks for the registered uninstaller inside the registry, and executes it. The uninstaller goes through the log file and undoes all the changes done during installation. That is, it deletes all the files that have been copied, all the registry keys the installer created etc.

However, if there is no log file, or if there is no record of the changes made to the registry the uninstaller might fail to uninstall the program, and it will stay there until it is removed by other means.

Note that the following operations should be performed with great care, since you enter to the sacred space of the Operations System, and improper deletion of the wrong entry might cause other utilities or operating system malfunctions.

• Find the directory for the application and delete all the files in the directory. Delete the directory.
• Open regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE’SOFTWARE and find the folder for the application. Delete the folder.
• Open regedit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER’SOFTWARE and find the folder for the application. Delete the folder.
• To remove the application entry from Add/Remove Programs (if present) open regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE’SOFTWARE’Microsoft’Windows’CurrentVersion’Uninstall and find the folder for the application. Delete the folder.
• Some applications have Services attached to them. If this is the case, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE’System’CurrentControlSet’Services, locate and delete the service.
• In Windows Explorer, navigate to the individual user settings and delete program references. Common places to check would be:

C:’Documents and Settings’All Users’Start Menu’Programs and delete relevant entries.
C:’Documents and Settings’All Users’Start Menu’Programs’Startup and delete relevant entries. C:’Documents and Settings’%YourUserID%’Start Menu’Programs and delete relevant entries. [Do this for each User ID listed]
C:’Documents and Settings’%YourUserID%’Start Menu’Programs’Startup and delete relevant entries. [Do this for each User ID listed]

If no entries were found in the previous step and the application launches automatically, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER’Software’Microsoft’Windows NT’CurrentVersion’Windows and delete the entry.

Sources and Additional Reading:

http://kb.iu.edu/data/aixt.html
http://video.about.com/windows/Uninstall-Programs-in-WinXP.htm
http://www.theeldergeek.com/manually_uninstall_programs.htm
http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-force-uninstall-a-program