Pc Clean Up

Uninstalling using the uninstallers that come with the software, or using add/remove programs in Windows rarely removes the programs completely. In fact, it leaves behind several traces in your Program Files folder, the registry and other places. Sometimes the program may be running in the background without you even knowing it, hogging up resources.

So obviously we want to remove these programs before they do some real harm.

So here’s a tutorial on how to uninstall software and remove these programs yourself if you feel confident enough in your computer skills to give it a try.

If you are not a computer whiz, I would recommend you to try uninstallation software to save time and avoid harming your computer.

The following steps are not recommended if you are not completely sure what you are doing, we will be accessing the registry, which is a no go for amateurs and can potentially do serious harm to your computer if you make a mistake, but I will try and make the steps on how to uninstall software as easy to follow as possible, but do read the entire tutorial before you attempt these steps to see if this is something you could do yourself, if you’re in doubt, it probably won’t be a good idea and you should follow this link for a safer approach.

First of all, go to C:\Program Files, once there see if you can find a folder that relates to the program you want to remove. You’re not supposed to do anything here yet, but make a note of where it is because we’ll be deleting this folder soon.

But before we do that we need to make sure the program is not running on startup, and disable it if it does. So click run, type msconfig in the box and press enter. Find the startup tab look for anything that is associated with the file. If you find the unwanted program, click the delete button and confirm your decision.

Sometimes a program may have a certain file types associated to it, and when you remove the program the computer no longer knows how to open it. There is no danger to this however, but the next time you try to open a file that has no program associated to it, you will be prompted to select a program to open the file.

Example: If you have Winamp installed on your computer and selected to use it to open mp3 files every time you double click an mp3 file, and then uninstall Winamp, you will need to select a new program to open mp3 files, like Windows Media Player.

Back to removal: The hard and risky part.

We’ll be accessing the registry in the next part so make sure you back it up.

Click the start button again, type regedit and hit enter. Navigate to a folder called HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\applications. Click the plus sign next to this folder, (the technical term is a registry key) and look for names that relates to your unwanted program. They might have tricky names in there and if you are not sure, or can’t find an appropriate key, don’t continue. If you delete the wrong key you may terminate vital applications.

If you did find it however and deleted it, you can navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software, repeat the steps above but look for a key with the name of the vendor of the program and delete the subkey for the program, or the vendor folder entirely. Repeat this step in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE key.

Press the ”home” button to get to the top of the registry navigator left pane, once done hit ”ctrl+f” and do a search for the program. Type the name of it in the “find what” field and check all the options under “look at”. Click “next” to search. If a match is found, delete it and press F3 to search again. Do a search for the file name, vendor path.

Reboot your computer.

Now, navigate to that folder we found earlier to see if it’s still there. If it is, delete it.

Congratulations! You have successfully removed an unwanted application.

The above steps are not guaranteed to work however, files can be hidden in tricky places and have their own subfolders and registry keys unrelated to the original program, and if you found the above steps somewhat complicated or couldn’t find the registry entries or start up command, (they sometimes have tricky names) I would recommend you to try Perfect Uninstaller just to be on the safe side. This is also a great option if you want remove several programs, or have programs that just won’t go away.

Like I said above, messing with the registry is not for amateurs, and if you’re not sure what you’re doing, leave it in the hands of the people at the pc repair shop or get some dedicated software to clean up your computer.

Did you like this post? Why don’t you subscribe to our feed.