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Uninstallers - do any of them work?

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Dirhael:
Heh, I will just say any developer that makes an uninstaller that cleans out *anything* from AppData without asking (or having a checkbox to do so marked by default) should be shot on sight. The rest of the argument I agree with, but personal data should never be cleared automatically.

To argue my POV I'm taking WinAMP as an example. When I was still using it from time to time I liked to check out different plugins, and a selected few of these plugins could mess up my WinAMP installation. No problem right? Just uninstall WinAMP and make sure that the program folder was cleared, then reinstall would surely get me right back up and running again. Not really because what now happens is that the WA developers in their infinite wisdom has decided that uninstalling also means that they should delete my music database from AppData, including MusicIP/Gracenote generated information for all my mp3's (and this means for the thousands of files that it took hours to generate said information for). Good idea? I think not...

nosh:
A "perfect" uninstaller integrated into the OS would only encourage crippleware. I don't think the OS should assume that all software is good at cleaning itself up. It could atleast take care of the base install folder & registry entries created on install. The sw could generate the trial expiry date on first run.

There are not as many "optimizers" for OS X for various reasons: first, there's no registry,
-Lashiec (April 25, 2008, 07:38 AM)
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How does shareware enforce itself then? Via system files? Just curious.

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.
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One of the more unusual protection schemes I've seen was a DOS chess program that modified just the dates of some system files after it expired. An older version of Rebel Decade, IIRC.

cathodera:

I have not had any problems with Revo Uninstaller http://www.revouninstaller.com/

It is freeware and it uses the program's uninstaller first, and then after that, if you want it to, it will go look everywhere and see what is left, and show it to you and ask if you want to remove it.

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