Remember removed programs

[Curt]

Don't you just hate it when it happens. You have grown used to some feature, and one day this particular feature is gone, and you can't remember which program gave it to you, or you can at least not remember the name of the program. And where do you go to read about the programs that were recently removed? There is no such place to go, because the informations went out the door together with the program and the feature.

My wish is for some little app to read and remember (important parts of) the informations from Windows' "Add/Remove Programs", or something alike, so I can go back and figure out why I suddenly lost this or that feature, please.

[MilesAhead]

It sounds like what you want is a free database.  I wrote a utility to comment files I download.  You may be able to use it somewhat for this purpose until you find an exact match or somebody codes it for you.

Here's the description

http://www.favessoft.com/comment.html

edit: I googled and I think I'm going to give Treepad Lite a try.  From the description it looks to be totally portable.  Can carry on a key drive or whatever.

[MilesAhead]

Hmmmmmmmmm I've started messing with Treepad Lite.  Pretty easy use and it does primitive searches on entire trees.  You could search on features that way.  Only thing is after you install or download something you need to be in the habit of firing it up and making an entry.

Still, for free it ain't bad.

[rjbull]

Total Uninstall keeps a list of programs that it's both installed and uninstalled.  Not free, but a good product.

[Edit]
Not certain - I think Treepad Lite does set a Registry key, but they were intending to make a truly portable version one day.  MemPad really is portable, but its search features aren't quite as strong as Treepad Lite's if you have more than a few hits.  Having said that, both of them were probably conceived as relatively light-duty applications.  However, alt.comp.freeware's Pricelessware list of popular free software can be had as a Treepad HJT file, or at least it could used to be.
[/Edit]

[AbteriX]

f.ex. NirSofts MyUninstall can save current items to an file, -- you have to do this manually by hand from time to time.

Or maybe you want to export the relevant reg keys via a batch and let the scheduler do this for you regularly?

http://www.ss64.com/nt/regedit.html
     Export part of the Registry
      REGEDIT /E pathname "RegPath"

Write this in an batch.cmd and set up an task to execute this batch every once a month

@ECHO OFF
REGEDIT /E D:\Backup\Registry_Uninstall_%%date%%.txt "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall"
REGEDIT /E D:\Backup\Registry_Products_%%date%%.txt "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Products"
PAUSE

and you will get such an list:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{DD7CDE4F-.....-352D}_is1]
"Inno Setup: Setup Version"="5.2.3"
"Inno Setup: App Path"="f:\\Program Files\\PDF to Word"
"InstallLocation"="f:\\Program Files\\PDF to Word\\"
"Inno Setup: Icon Group"="PDF to Word"
"Inno Setup: User"="Administrator"
"Inno Setup: Selected Tasks"=""
"Inno Setup: Deselected Tasks"="desktopicon,quicklaunchicon"
"DisplayName"="PDF to Word"
"UninstallString"="\"f:\\Program Files\\PDF to Word\\unins000.exe\""
"QuietUninstallString"="\"f:\\Program Files\\PDF to Word\\unins000.exe\" /SILENT"
"Publisher"="Quick PDF"
"URLInfoAbout"="http://www.pdf.tld/"
"HelpLink"="http://www.pdf.tld/"
"URLUpdateInfo"="http://www.pdf.tld/"
"NoModify"=dword:00000001
"NoRepair"=dword:00000001
"InstallDate"="20080919"

Note:
- modify the path "D:\Backup\" to your paths
- in an batch.cmd use two %s, on command line use one % only.

[Curt]

Thanks for the ideas.


I think the application I want should be placed in Start. At every start it must scan the computer  and write the names on all applications found. It should not be able to delete, only to write & overwrite, to a single text file. That should be all.

[MilesAhead]

Curt, this isn't exactly what you asked for but you encouraged me to update and streamline CommentConfig.  The result is TipOff

It still has the Property Comment Tab to edit comments for any file, but now a data file is made in the same folder to reduce the memory footprint.  Plus it includes a little converter program to output a simple TreePad .hjt file that can be imported and edited with TreePad Lite. Tooltips display the comment for supported archive file types.

With this scheme it's much easier to transport folders with comments to external drives and onto different machines. Plus TreePad seems to have a good following so I doubt it will go away anytime soon.

Edit: To remove the need to run the converter from the command line I added a button to the Comment Property Page.  I think I might even use this thing myself now!!

[Darwin]

Total Uninstall[/url] keeps a list of programs that it's both installed and uninstalled.  Not free, but a good product.

Ashampoo Uninstaller does this as well, as long as you don't delete to log files it creates when you install a program.

[Curt]

this thread may be moved to "unanswered requests"... or...

I think the application I want should be placed in Start. At every start it must scan the computer  and write the names on all applications found. It should not be able to delete, only to write & overwrite, to a single text file. That should be all.

- this was of course not the right procedure.

But I still would like an app to remember former installed programs.
Ashampoo and Total Uninstall are both miles over the target.

[MilesAhead]

Sounds like MyUninstall is closest to what you want.  Maybe use some macro to run it and click View=>Html Report All Items.  One of those mouse click or keystroke recorders should do it.  You could have it overwrite the same filename for the export list.

That would seem like the easiest way.

[skwire]

Maybe use some macro to run it and click View=>Html Report All Items.

No need for a macro since the app itself has commandline support to do exactly what you're suggesting:

Command-line options

• /stext <Filename> Save the list of all installed applications into a regular text file.
• /stab <Filename> Save the list of all installed applications into a tab-delimited text file.
• /stabular <Filename> Save the list of all installed applications into a tabular text file.
• /shtml <Filename> Save the list of all installed applications into HTML file.
• /sxml <Filename> Save the list of all installed applications to XML file.

[Curt]

I would of course like the program to also tell when a program was removed.
So far I have written NirSofer and suggested the hole "IDEA:" as a new utility.

[MilesAhead]

On this vbscript site, the entry List Installed Programs shows how to get the list.  But the automatic monitoring implied seems problematic.  It may be simpler to keep a log using something like TreePad where you can add a program and its description when you install it, then make a note that it's no longer installed when you uninstall it.  Otherwise you'd either have to chain into everything that can install and uninstall programs, or run the MyUninstall as skwire noted and then run some kind of diff comparison.

Seems like it could all be done with note taking to me.

edit: btw I do agree that since MyUninstall has all the functionality, if you could get the author to add a feature to permanently log uninstalls with the program name and description, that seems like the best solution.

[flyfox2100]

my system often reinstall,so this sort of software is  no use for me