Getting rid of softwares

[exculiber]

How do I get rid of softwares installed on my PC without uninstallers and without the option to remove under Add/Remove ?
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[choknuti]

You can delete the files & folders manually. Then search carefully searchyour HDD looking for components, addons, files folders that the application could have put in different folders and delete them. Finally go through the registry with a finetooth comb.

Basically while you can do it, it is 1000 times easier using add/remove or the uninstaller.

 

[hubbardt]

You may have to do this in Safe mode if the application is running services/processes in the background.

 

[g-paw]

Check this out, it may work for you.

http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

 

[exculiber]

You can delete the files & folders manually. Then search carefully searchyour HDD looking for components, addons, files folders that the application could have put in different folders and delete them. Finally go through the registry with a finetooth comb.

Basically while you can do it, it is 1000 times easier using add/remove or the uninstaller.

I tried manual deletion but it's not reliable. Errors keep popping up because of missing files as a result of undeleted components.
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[exculiber]

Check this out, it may work for you.

http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

It only unlocks files which can't be deleted. But this may help even for those programs with unistaller. I have a program which I uninstalled but still keeps on displaying error.
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[choknuti]

Did you try going into safe mode and deleting?

If nothing works look like your only option will be to reinstall

 

[exculiber]

You mean reinstall my OS and reinstall everything? No, not that way please!. It is going to be a lot of work for me.
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[choknuti]

Unfortunately with a MS OS sometimes that is the easiest way to solve your problems

 

[hubbardt]

What error(s) are you getting ?

By going into Safe mode you should be able to delete everything apart from the core o/s ....

 

[choknuti]

That is what I told him but from his posts I gather that he cannot solve his problem in safemode

 

[hubbardt]

In that case I would create a BartPE bootable CD, boot of that and now you can delete whatever you want

BartPE

 

[choknuti]

not so easy. just read his posts above. His problems seem to be that he has uninstalled or tried to ......... and he keeps on getting errors.

Me thinks there is some left over garbage. Sort of like looking for a needle in a haystack.

@ OP you could try to reinstall the program that gave you the problems and then uninstall again

 

[hubbardt]

Ahhh ... I should drink more coffee and read the entire post

If he posts the error we could possibly help but as you said it could be a needle in a haystack ...

Need more answers:

- When does the error ocurr ? (boot up, opening Explorer ....)
- Anything in the eventlogs ?
- Actual error message
- etc

 

[exculiber]

Thanks for all the inputs. I reformatted my hard drive, the most practical way for me. I segregated all my data files this time so that the next time I need another round of reinstallation, it should be much easier.
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[hubbardt]

No worries.

Might be worth considering making an image (using Norton Ghost for example) of your C: partition every 2-3 months. That way you can restore things back if all else fails.

 

[choknuti]

Good advice. It would save a lot of headaches if more people did this.

If windows restore worked properly we wouldn't need the backup but unfortunately it is windows restore after all.

 

[hubbardt]

Too true

I don't trust Windows Restore as several times it has simply told me that it could not restore to a given point in time and even earlier restore points didn't work.

 

[exculiber]

I hardly pay attention to my OS partition. It is my data file which I regularly keep track. That's the reason why I can hardly relate about Ghost and Norton and even Windows Restore feature.
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[choknuti]

This is one reason I really like Linux. The philosophy behind the partitioning points to this kind of "separate partition" type of setup.