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Uninstallers - do any of them work?

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MrCrispy:
Let me start my rant by saying I believe there should be no need for utilities like defraggers, tweakers, registry cleaners, uninstallers etc. These are all functions the OS should perform. And in fact DOES perform quite well ! I don't see a gazillion shareware utilities that advertise miracle cures  for OSX, and I think the main reason is 1) Windows apps are not well written or well behaved compared to carefully craftes OSX and Linux apps, and 2) the OS itself doesn't do housecleaning very well, although its a lot better than most suspect.

Ok, back to uninstallers. As far as I'm concerned, the only true test if it will let me install and use a trial version after it expires. Remove every last registry key and hidden data and get my system back. AFAIK no on does this. A number of them do registry monitoring and will figure out whats changed, but do they really work?

I shouldn't have to use the Norton removal tool, I don't want special utilities to remove leftover junk. I want one (ring) to rule them all !!

Deozaan:
Yep. I was just in my Application Data folder today and I found all sorts of left over files from programs long ago uninstalled. Who knows what the registry looks like!

kreatorr:
I just discovered an application sandbox program called Sandboxie http://www.sandboxie.com/.  It allows you to run programs in a virtual sandbox but without the full overhead of running a PC virtualization environment like VMware.  While the program runs, it'll still be able to read from your files if you set it to, but it will not be able to write or modify any files as well as the registry (it will think it has, but it really hasn't).

In your quest to keep your system clean though, I'm not sure if Sandboxie itself leaves any traces on your PC since it is nagware and crippleware...  ;)

Lashiec:
There are not as many "optimizers" for OS X for various reasons: first, there's no registry, second, being a smaller market, there's much less crappy software, otherwise it could not survive. But there are uninstallers, that's for sure, config files are often left behind when uninstalling.

Going back to your question, both Total Uninstall and Regshot are able to do that, although with Regshot you have to do the removal by hand. And yes, after uninstalling a trial version and installing it again, you get more time to test the program, I tested this personally. Be aware that some software write data to certain system files for their trial systems, and the uninstallers can't remove this data, but they can tell you which files were modified, so you can remove the data later with your favourite text editor.

The best option is to use something like Sandboxie, as kreatorr notes above, or any VM, like VirtualBox or Virtual PC.

BTW, the task of uninstalling an application correctly does not belong to Windows, but to the guy writing the uninstaller of the application you're using. Most software do not leave junk behind, as long as they don't write too much data to the registry or scatter files around the file system. The bigger an app, the greater the possibility of bad uninstallers.

tomos:
I just discovered an application sandbox program called Sandboxie http://www.sandboxie.com/.  It allows you to run programs in a virtual sandbox but without the full overhead of running a PC virtualization environment like VMware.  While the program runs, it'll still be able to read from your files if you set it to, but it will not be able to write or modify any files as well as the registry (it will think it has, but it really hasn't).
-kreatorr (April 25, 2008, 04:59 AM)
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Giveaway of the Day - Returnil Virtual System Premium Edition
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/
sounds very good

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=13170.0
a search (returnil) show up a lot from mid last year about it

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