Uninstalled programs

[ferscha]

How can I know wich programs have been uninstalled in a PC with Windows 98? Is there a record kept in the registry?

Thanks in advance

 

[mudskipper]

You have to do some detective work.

A well written program (or at least uninstaller) will completely remove references to itself in the registry, delete its unique files and folders, and remove any associations.

This means that you might find some remenants of programs in the registry (or in a directory on the hard drive, etc), but don't count on finding all of them!

Good luck! Mudskipper
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Groucho said it best- "A four year-old child could understand this! Quick! Run out and find me a four year-old child: I can't make heads nor tails out of this!"

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

I agree, this is not easy. I think that if you take a note of all of the programmes than are in the registry and then start to compare them with everything you have, you will start to get a feel.

But there are bound to be programmes that you didn't know you had in there also. Do NOT worry ever about registry. Always back it up before you start purging, if you are to do this manually, and if you make a mistake then smpply exit to DOS and type in

C:\scanreg /restore

this will get you back to the previous registry before you started purging.

It may be easier for you to use a registry cleaner like EasyCleaner from ToniArts, here's the link:

http://www.toniarts.com/ecleane.htm

The only thing is that these registry cleaners do not really clean up everything, they fight shy of that for good reason. I think that you need time to get to know you machine before you can be as blase as I am about deleting registry entries. It is probably for that reason that I tend to give tips on it.

Regards
Phil
Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere.

 

[ferscha]

What I need is to clean vestiges of uninstalls of some softwares: example: Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Kento]

Here's another good free registry cleaner:

http://www.vtoy.fi/jv16/index.php

But you don't really need to worry about leaving some registry entries. They won't hurt anything.