Uninstall – best way? (XP home sp2 + updates)

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Can anyone give their views on the best procedure to uninstall a programme. I have always gone for the option from the Control Panel ->Add & Remove Progs, but if a programme has its own uninstall option is it better to use this?

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I have no technical backup for this logic, but I’ll give you my thinking on the topic anyway. If a program I want to remove has provided an “uninstall” selection in its menu structure, I usually try that rather than Control Panel. My thinking is that the software vendor “might” have a cleaner understanding of what was installed and do a better job of removal than Windows might do on its own. Obviously, if that’s not available, then I rely on the Add/Remove Control Panel applet. Often I find that Windows Explorer will still show the directory for the removed program because of some user settings or files and I might still have to delete those files and the directory manually.

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I THINK ( not sure of this at all ) that AddRemove first looks for an uninstall program provided with the software and uses that first.

I have been using a utility called AddRemove Pro from ARP
Click on the freeware link.

It not only uninstalls programs but will also delete broken entries and has other niceties. Seems faster too.

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Hi,
Not much to add what Al mentioned. If a program is installed with a Windows compatible setup program, then there will be an entry in the Add or Remove Programs dialog box.

So far I have not seen a program who has an entry in Add or Remove that is different from the one found in the Uninstall shortcut created at installation (if I compare entries in the registry with shortcuts in Start menu).

Then, of course, there are other kind of programs that do not have a complicated install routine; just unpacks some files to a folder, then there will be no entry in Add or Remove Programs.

Or programs that do not add a shortcut to an uninstall routine, but simply rely on the entry created by the setup program in Add or Remove Programs.

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By “best”, do you mean the most complete or the safest? As a general rule, the smaller the program is the better it will uninstall. Sadly, when you get to large programs like AutoCAD you will find 550-600 leftover registry entries. Many Antivirus programs like Symantec and McAfee will leave only 50-100 registry entries after an uninstall. Even though there are less, they usually are in a worse place or have changed critical values. When you call the vendor and tell them they say that is typical and do not worry about it. This attitude has spawned all the registry cleaners you will find on the web. I have come to the conclusion for myself that a pristine image before an install on a test machine or using a virtual drive to test a program is the best.

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