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Hack 80 Remove Unruly Applications and Uninstall Entries

Uninstalling programs is sometimes tougher than
you'd expect; even when you use built-in
uninstallers, programs leave bits of themselves all over your hard
disk and Registry. Here's how to remove
them.

Uninstalling applications can be a
tricky business. At a glance, it seems simple: choose Start
Control Panel Add or Remove Programs, then
choose the program you want to remove in the Add or Remove Programs
dialog box, and click Remove.

But uninstall routines are generally only as good as the programmer
that made them. And that means that unruly programs commonly leave
bits of themselves behind, even after you uninstall them. They might
leave behind DLLs that load every time you start Windows, as well as
Registry entries, even
though the original program is gone. In both instances, your system
performance takes a
hit loading resources for programs that no longer exist.

The programs also
might leave behind unnecessary files and folders, which take up hard
disk space.

There's a good deal you can do to clean up after
these unruly applications, though. Follow this
advice:

After you've run the
uninstallation routine, run the Registry Editor [Hack #68], search through the Registry for
any keys and values the program left behind, and then delete them.
Frequently, you can find the settings for the program at
\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Publisher\Program
Name where Publisher is the
name of the software company that made the program and
Program Name is the name of the software
package (in the case of companies with multiple products like
Symantec or Adobe). For safety's sake, make a backup
of Registry keys [Hack #71] before deleting
them.

Before uninstalling the application, look through your hard disk to
see where the program stores its files and folders. Then, after you
run the uninstallation routine, look for those files and folders and
delete them if they haven't been deleted. Often,
you'll find them in C:\Program
Files\<Publisher>\<Program Name>.

After uninstalling the program, make sure that no parts of the
program are still being run at startup. To do that, delete their
entries from
\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
and
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.

Create a restore point so that you can restore your system to the
state it was in before you installed the program. Choose Control
Panel Performance and Maintenance System
Restore and follow the wizard for creating a restore point. If
you're testing out an application and
aren't sure that you're going to
keep using it, create a restore point before you install it. Then,
after you've installed the application and decided
not to use it, revert to that restore point instead of using the
uninstallation routine; it's more thorough.

Use RegSpy
[Hack #72]. This
downloadable program lets you watch and track changes made to the
Registry whenever a program installs and runs, and it lets you roll
back changes the program made.

9.2.1 Remove Stubborn Uninstall Entries from Already Uninstalled Programs

Inexplicably,
even after
you've uninstalled some programs, their entries
still remain listed in the Add or Remove Programs dialog box. As time
goes on, it's easy for you to forget what programs
you've uninstalled, so when you see their entries
there you'll assume the programs are still on your
hard disk, but when you try to uninstall them you'll
receive an error message. There's an easy way to
remove those entries. First, try to uninstall the program from the
Add or Remove Programs dialog box. If it doesn't
uninstall, run the Registry Editor and open
\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall.
Look for the entry of the uninstalled program (it will be the program
name) and delete it. In some instances, instead of the program name,
you'll see an entry like this:
{3075C5C3-0807-4924-AF8F-FF27052C12AE}. In that
case, open the DispayName subkey in that entry; it
should have the name of the programin this instance, Norton
Antivirus 2002. When you find the proper entry, delete it. For
safety's sake, make a backup of Registry keys
[Hack #71] before deleting
them.

9.2.2 Remove Access to Certain Microsoft Programs

As part of a settlement in a
federal antitrust case,
Microsoft was forced to allow
non-Microsoft programs to be the default applications for certain
uses, such as email, web browsing, and digital entertainment. Users
also had to be allowed to remove access to Microsoft programs that
accomplished those tasks. That ruling came well after Windows XP was
shipped, though, so many copies of XP don't allow
you to do that. However, if you have a later version of XP, or if you
have installed the Windows XP Service Pack 1 (also called SP-1), your
copy of the operating system has those capabilities.

To find out if you have SP-1, right-click on My Computer and look on the General tab. The words "Service Pack 1" will be there if you have SP-1 installed.

To remove access to Microsoft programs, first find out if your system
has the capabilities. Choose Start Control Panel
Add or Remove Programs and see whether the Add or Remove
Programs dialog box contains a button in the left pane titled Set
Program Access and Default. If it does, you can remove access to
Microsoft programs. Click that button. You'll find
three choices: Microsoft Windows, Non-Microsoft, and Custom. Click on
the double-down arrow next to any choice to see more details.

If you choose Microsoft Windows, then your default programs for web
browsing, email, instant messaging, digital entertainment, and
accessing Java applications will all be Microsoft programs. If you
choose Non-Microsoft, the defaults will be the non-Microsoft programs
that your computer manufacturer installed on your PC. If you choose
Custom, you can pick and choose between Microsoft and non-Microsoft
applications, as shown in Figure 9-1.

Figure 9-1. Choosing Microsoft or non-Microsoft applications for certain purposes

Keep in mind that "Remove access"
doesn't mean the same as deleting the program. It
only means that the icon for the program will be removed. For
example, if you remove access to Internet Explorer, it
won't actually be deleted from your hard disk; you
merely won't be able to see its icon. Also, be aware
that not all email, instant messaging, digital entertainment, and web
browsing programs will show up on the non-Microsoft or Custom lists,
so you won't necessarily be able to use this screen
to set them as your defaults.

All this means that the best use for the Set Program Access and
Default dialog box is to remove the icons of some Microsoft programs;
it doesn't offer a lot of functionality beyond that.

9.2.3 See Also

[Hack #17]