Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Another PC challenged question – Uninstaller

What’s the best program for uninstalling software? Something that can find stuff that the windows uninstaller can’t….

I bought this Western Digital external hard drive and started using it, but the stupid thing wouldn’t wake up until I installed the back up software that came with it. The pricks at WD decided this software shouldn’t be included with the drive and put a 30 day trial on it. After 30 day’s you have to buy it to get a key. I already have back up software that’s much better, so I figured I’d just un-install this WD software. I can’t find it anywhere….. Every time the computer is turned on, I have all these damn windows that pop up telling me I need to register this software. It’s very frustrating.

High quality geeks will be along shortly to answer your question...

1. Did you try to find relevant entries in Start - Control Panel - Add/Remove programs?
2. You could fish around in c:\programs and find the appropriate folder and just delete it.
3. Startup inspector for Windows is free and does a decent job of helping you figure out and fix those programs that are running automatically when you restart.

That's all I got. Sorry.

Revo uninstaller is an excellent program(I use it), and is also free. It's highly recommended to use a program other than Add/Remove through Windows because they are far more thorough.

Are you saying you can't find the location on your C drive where the backup software is installed? Does it not show up in the add/remove software utility on the control panel? Did you check on the start menu to see if the install added a group that may include an uninstaller?

Edit: you can try bringing up the task manager and looking for the main executable for the program. Then use search to find the exe and you have the location where its installed.

Mike, If you are running Vista, Windows Defender should be able to find it, it just may be under a different name.
I never thought I would promote Vista but ever since I got my new computer I've really like it, I just upgraded my old Gateway with it also.

I've only got one computer with Vista... a Dell I bought specifically for Photoshop work. Despite all the grumblings about Vista, I've never had a problem with it..

Of course, I'm leading this OT... Sorry Mike...

Thanks Guys......

This software is nowhere to be found with the uninstaller. I can find the folder in Windows Explorer though. An IT friend of mine told me years ago to never just delete program folders for the purpose of uninstalling the software. He told that when you do this, it does not cleanly remove the software and you will be plagued with problems forever that would require a complete hard drive re-format to resolve. His advice was to always use the uninstaller whenever possible. I took that advice to heart ever since.

I have Defender turned off. I’m running Norton Home Security. I bought into the Norton Scam / Swindle…. I’ll turn Defender back on and see what it’ll do for me.

I’ll look into this Revo software as well.

I’m spending entirely too much time screwing with computers this week…….

The problem you are having is exactly why I chose Acronis backup and did a full system backup on clean systems.

The next time something intractable installs itself, I will simply resore the system from backup. Its a great solution even if it takes 24 hours when you don't know what you are doing.

The other suggestion I received is to create a build book for each computer. Basically its a log of what is installed and what OS changes have been made.

You can also try an internet search to see if someone else has run into and already solved this problem.

IIRC, the back up software remains on the removeable drive and never actually installs on the C drive.

Good call, Jay. It might be something as simple as deleting an autorun file in the root of the external drive.

That was why I asked the original question. An easy way to figure out of all or part of the program is on the removable drive is to simply unplug it.

If it is just an autorun that starts up when you try to access the removable drive, the solution is simple: reformat the drive.

It sounds like there is more to it than that though. ie: Mike ran an installer that installed something on his c drive.

Sure. It's free. Format C: That's what I do, anyway.



Really? WD is my favorite brand for HD's as I have historically had the least amount of failures with them. I have a couple of their external USB drives and I've never had a problem like that. Which model is it that's doing this? I want to make sure I avoid it! I hate third-party, system-tray-clogging bloatware.

But if you wanted actual advice.....

If you can't find a way to totally uninstall it, you can still tell Windows not to run it at boot. Go to Start->Run. Type 'msconfig' (no quotes). If you look at the Startup tab, that's a list of everything your system starts when it boots. It can be very informative as to what bloat-ware has been installed on your system, whether you knew about it or not. You can use that list to track down where the applets are that are starting, or you can just disable their startup by unchecking the box.

But do be careful with msconfig, you can mess up your system if you start tinkering with things. You're mostly safe if you just stay on the 'Startup' tab. Do not mess with System.ini, Win.ini or Boot.ini unless you know what you're doing.

Remember, "with great power comes great responsibility".

Mike, if you re-run The Acronis installer it might present you with a Remove/Uninstall option.

Peter, that scares me.... I don't know what I'm doing, so I'll just have to wait for Peter or Ken to show up on my doorstet for that fix....

The WD drive is the My Book Home Edition. USB/Firewire/eSATA. I bought it as Costco. The software is definately on my C: as the WD drive is disconnected.

I had some luck with Windows Defender. I was able to turn it off during start up, but I still can't find it do uninstall it.

If you're up for it, I can use remote assistance software to take control of your PC and fix it from my house this evening (or another convenient day). It's called TeamViewer. It's free and works like a charm.

Let me know via PM.

If it's trial ware, try Decrapifier. It hunts down this kind of thing and wipes it (no pun intended....... Well, maybe a little).

Also, try a google. Others have likely had and asolved the issue.

AL the software apps mentioned here will do a good job. I try to use them but lately, I find I'm lazy and just use the control panel Add/Remove feature. This doesn't always clean up 100% of the registry settings and stuff but I find that even when I uninstall properly, run defrag now and then, etc... I still end up reformatting my system drive every year (two max) because the ultimate cleanup and fresh reinstall significantly re-improves my PCs performance. Usually, you don't even realize how cluttered and slow it has gotten until you do a format and rebuild. All my data is kept on separate hard drives (and backed up) so the format doesn't give me the cold sweats.

Thank for the offer Peter. The IT folks at work do that every now and again. It really freaks me out for some reason. I supose is has something to do with the profound effect that movie "The Net" had on my years ago. Not sure if I could handle it for my personnal PC....

I'll try one of the mentioned removal tools first.

WOW! Somebody else who is hip to TeamViewer. I use it to help out my friends, which is really humorous cuz I don't really know that much about fixing computers. I do however know more than my friends.

I LOVE this program! It proved extremely difficult to help folks over the phone without the benefit of being able to see their computer screen and thus know exactly what they were doing. This program has literally saved my sanity (and a number of friendships).

Peter, when I have things happen on my computer that I can't figure out, you may be hearing from me.

Yeah!

I say we let Peter provide tech support to ALL of us!

To the PeterCopter!

Wouldn't it look more like a submarine? Especially since it's full of....oh, never mind....

another vote for revo unistaller here.

I think Mark is really onto something here...

Peter and Ken are the "Axiomite" members. They got Axiom bling for their prolific posting. They are among the uber geeks around here. They SHOULD help us. 24/7.

I have a bad feeling about this. And we're actually Shareholder ITMs...

Mea culpa.