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Adventures in cleaning (my cranky) computer

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TaoPhoenix:
One of the hours I spent today was stuff that was not even registering in the add-remove list, which I'm pretty fuzzy on how that happens.-TaoPhoenix (April 08, 2015, 01:57 AM)
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-are you sure they were installed and not just unpacked? I know that I soon will have forgotten if I installed or merely unpacked a program. One way to have a clue is, if a proper folder has been created (by the program in question) in Start > All programs, or if you merely have a shortcut somewhere.
-Curt (April 08, 2015, 02:28 AM)
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I'm not sure what this question means. Dooble Browser, as an example, had a full folder in C/Program Files, and it loaded, but it wasn't pulled for Add/Remove Programs. I don't "unpack" things to C/Prog Files, so it could only have gotten there with an installer.

Sometimes I do advanced installs and don't put in start menu shortcuts, but there's no clear reason why it shouldn't get pulled for add/delete programs unless it's just a cute .exe that just sits there and does stuff, but that's not what this case situation is because I put those kinds of things on desktop/subfolder, not C/Prog Files

TaoPhoenix:
Some of y'all are talking about images - that's not the tool I wanted. I mentioned earlier about "modular" - if I install five things and later want to remove #2, images aren't going to help me - what I want is a tool that captured the full changes caused by prog install #2, that then correctly reverses it, registry and all. More like a super-uninstaller, since I am getting quite tired of "Windows uninstalled X, some things have to be deleted manually". That's where all of this junk ended up from to begin with.

(And I still can't get about five things out of there, "because a script / file is missing" - there's manual stuff on the web but I ran out of energy this time. EMET is one of them, and that program gave me problems through its entire life cycle.)

MilesAhead:
Some of y'all are talking about images - that's not the tool I wanted. I mentioned earlier about "modular" - if I install five things and later want to remove #2, images aren't going to help me - what I want is a tool that captured the full changes caused by prog install #2, that then correctly reverses it, registry and all. More like a super-uninstaller, since I am getting quite tired of "Windows uninstalled X, some things have to be deleted manually". That's where all of this junk ended up from to begin with.

-TaoPhoenix (April 08, 2015, 10:06 AM)
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The trouble with uninstall utilities that take a snapshot during install to get rid of everything during uninstall is if you install other stuff between those 2 events.  The uninstall can munge what got installed in the middle.  It's ok for a test where you install using the snapshot utility, run it and test it, then remove it, without installing anything else.  At least I haven't heard of one that works perfectly.

Giampy:
I constantly use certain programs in virtual environment. No trash in my PC.
Virtualization is sometimes a solution.

anandcoral:
Hi Tao, what Miles says is right. I remember using a utility, can not remember the name properly now, something like ATTUNE or so. I used it during Win98. It had options to run before installing a program, when it created snapshot of the current system files, registry etc. Then after installing the program, run ATTUNE (?) which again creates the snapshot of the files and registry changes.

Now when I need to uninstall the program, I run ATTUNE (?) and it restores the system and registry changes. But this caused problem if I have installed some other programs in between or Win updates happened etc. This program (ATTUNE ?)did not work in new Win version and I did not find the updated so I left it.

At present I think you can use Sanboxie, as per your requirement. Your main system remains clean when you remove the program in Sandboxie. I have not used it but others here may have idea of it.

Regards,

Anand

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