On the bright side, if everything in Windows worked well then you and I (and lots of others) would be out of a job :)

Hi Rob,

I installed ZSoft on both my computers. Both had a program I wanted to remove -- the same program on both.

With one computer, I used ZSoft. It removed part of the program, but not all of its components. I had to remove those manually.

On my other computer, I used Windows Add/Remove Programs. That removed everything, easily and effortlessly.

But, as far as I can tell, ZSoft hasn't caused any problems with my computer, like crashing it.

For what it's worth, that's my experience.

It did not crash my machines (2 virtual, one an ancient fujitsu), but neither did it greatly expand the number of apps I could remove. I confess, I'd been expecting Great Things, the ability to remove EVERYTHING (from the fujitsu, which desperately needs to be emptied so I can run Wubi...) up to and including IE.. or windows, if I got lucky.

So, it wasn' a total failure (didn' crash), but it wasn't the savior I'd hoped it'd be.

Don't beat yourself up overmuch: this is WINDOZE we're talking about, after all.

Just like it's a good idea to empty your garage into your driveway, cull, and repack every few years, The Windows system dir needs the same thing. XP pretty much cleans up after itself the way a teenager cleans up their room, buy just stuffing things out of site and not really cleaning, and eventually the system dir just gets corrupt (think of average of 4 years yes if you're installing and removing a lot of programs, more if you're not)

What blows my mind is the number of people who just scrap perfectly good hardware just because the OS had become too corrupted to run properly. Setting up a second partition and mapping the documents and setting folder to it will allow you to reinstall your OS without loosing all of your data and settings.

While this may be way beyond the average user, I'm sure most people these days know an IT professional or geeky hobbyist. I've been known to rebuild systems for friends in exchange for a full days babysitting so my wife and I can go skiing.

I had a similar experience with Spyware Doctor, which Rob recommended a while ago in a column. After Spybot kept turning up the same few low-level trackers and cookies scan after scan, never quite getting rid of them, I decided to shell out the 30 bucks for Spyware Doctor. It detected several minor infections and seemed to clean them up okay, but my system became unbearably slow. We're talking a full minute for the start menu to come up, more than that for Control Panel to open. Task Manager showed that Spyware Doctor was constantly sucking up 99% of my CPU power, even when it wasn't scanning.

I did a little research online and discovered that this is a common problem with the last few versions of Spyware Doctor, which they've known about for several months and haven't fixed. So I shut down Spyware Doctor, and my system was back to normal in no time. Goodbye, 30 bucks. I guess I'm back to Spybot.

I recently stayed at a house where the sole parent lived off online trading, but allowed his teenage daughter to share his Windows profile. She downloaded every bit of spyware-infested crap in sight, and never thought to remove anything she didn't use. He "had been told" to run defraggers and registry cleaners every few days - pointlessly really.

Luckily the antivirus/antispyware progs were doing their job, even though neither had updated their signatures in months, but it still took 3 hours to clean off literally dozens of programs and browser "toolbars" that were never used, but many of which loaded stubs every time the PC booted. ITunes, iPod and Quicktime stubs that were never used (installed as "extras" with a mobile phone sync software package) were as annoying as ever to remove.

It didn't help that they used the desktop as the download target for everything, so often there were multiple install packages and desktop shortcuts for the same program competing for attention. The All Programs menu ran to 3 columns.

I'd like to say that this was unusual, but in my experience it runs to the norm really as to how home users interact with computers (PCs and Macs alike) and the internet.

I've used a simple, yet informative uninstaller, MyUninstaller, for years, and it seems to work. It can be found at http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/myuninst.html

Looking at the zsoft.dk, it appears there is an active support forum, I would hope folks would use this to help improve the product and their experience with it.

Another product InstallWatch is available here

I would think that these type products will do best when they have recorded all the changes an installer made instead of looking in the standard places

I like this site. It's no MSN but decent.
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

Can I suggest an alternative? Try DeCrapifier.com. Created by and for Dells. Works for me.It was originally suggested to me by MrModem.com, my favorite newsletter.

Has anyone mentioned the free Revo Uninstaller? It has a "Hunter Mode" - sort of a point and shoot feature, and has worked flawlessly - at least for me. You can read the Lifehacker review at http://lifehacker.com/software/featured-windows-download/completely-remove-programs-with-revo-uninstaller-282337.php

Hi folks,

Looking for an awesome uninstaller with extra level features, such as registry cleanup, and extra temp files cleanup?

Then look no further then ccleaner!

CCleaner is available on www.filehippo.com and the site also contains many other helpful tools.

RE: this....

>> It seems that, after a certain level of
>> disrepair, accident or just bad luck,
>> Windows can become ungovernable. Things
>> fall apart, and there's nothing that
>> you can do to put them back together.
>> I had hoped that Windows Vista might
>> fix this--but the problem seems as bad
>> as ever in Vista.

When are you going to start using that
"four letter word", namely "Linux"?

Me, acknowledge the existence of Linux? No way that would ever happen :)

- RP

Your comment about windows becoming ungovernable after a few program install/uninstall operations hits the mark. I have had this same experience with windows 95, 98, Me, XP, and XP Media Center. In my experience with Windows the more programs and hardware you try out, the sooner you have to "burn down the village.." and start over with a clean install, knowing full well that it won't be the last time. Hmm, Linux you say...?

Rather than "burning down the village" once in a while, do a clean install and make a disk image with something like Acronis TrueImage. If things go south, save your data files, restore the image, update Windows, and reinstall the software you really want. (Good cure for virus infection, too.)

I've had some success with Ccleaner (formerly CrapCleaner). It got rid of some stubborn components left behind after some software upgrades. It also has a registry optimizing function. It's a free download, but I was sufficiently impressed to donate $10 to the developer.

Strange, I've been using PCs since the original and I've never had one become unusable. I don't do anything special, but I run AdAware, Registry Mechanic regularly and Diskkeeper runs in the background in smart mode to defrag. I run Avast about once a week - the free version is ok, but I don't especially recommend it. Occasionally I run CCleaner. If you don't defrag in the background, defrag often.

Sorry forgot to mention that I stay away from Symantec and McAfee like the plague. I've had problems that cost me hours with nearly every Norton product except the original file recovery program. After getting bought out by Symantec it just got worse. If I had a computer that came with a Symantec product installed, I would remove it. I've programmed for a living for the last 30 years.

the app I still use to clean out unwanted registry residual entries left by apps is Lexun RegScrubXP. Check it out at majorgeeks.com

Lord, please, for Xmas, give me a program that automatically saves everything on my computer to CDs except Windows--then reinstalls a fresh Windows program--and then reinstalls all the other stuff.

I see a lot of evasion going on in these comments.

•People are told to partition a hard drive and do a back up to one partition and a clean install to the other. Since the entire drive is in trouble, that is not a good idea. External hard drives are quite inexpensive now. Buy one and back up to it, so you can do a complete erasure and clean install on your computer. Don't be so fracking stingy.

•An 'expert' tells us he has no problem running Windows, and then follows that up with a list of third-party utilities he runs. If there was no problem running Windows, the utilities would not be needed.

•Someone else tries to blame Windows problems on 'stubs' from Apple programs. Actually, Apple programs install and uninstall much more easily than Windows third party applications. Unless he is referring to preferences, which have no effect on a computer unless the full application is installed, those remarks do not make any sense.

Before one can solve a problem, one must acknowledge it. That is not occurring based on some of these comments.

I believe the name for many of users' problems is "Windows Rot". After a certain period of time, a re-install is necessary and actually useful in re-establishing some control by pruning all those unused processes from long-abandoned programs that don't get re-installed.

I also have this theory that Windows never boots exactly the same way twice, and is the cause of many of the weird, never-seen-before problems.