How best to manually uninstall a program in windows 7/vista

Question

I have a program whose uninstall program is giving me grief, it has an error partway through uninstall, stops and rolls back.

I would like to uninstall this product manually so what is the best way to go about doing this?

Answer 1

Revo Uninstaller is your best bet

With its advanced and fast algorithm, Revo Uninstaller analyzes an application's data before uninstall and scans after you uninstall an application. After the program's regular uninstaller runs, you can remove additional unnecessary files, folders and registry keys that are usually left over on your computer. Even if you have a broken installation, Revo Uninstaller scans for an application's data on your hard disk drives and in the Windows registry and shows all found files, folders and registry keys so you can delete them.

Completely uninstalls the program, and if it cant deletes all registry entries and files associated with that program

Answer 2

If you really want to uninstall manually, find the install log, usually in the application folder. It is a difficult to read plain text file that tells you what files where installed where and what registry keys were created. If the program you want to uninstall has a pretty simple install with not many actions reading it and uninstalling this way is not very difficult. There are potentially many caveats using methods other than the program's own uninstaller. The log file will not contain references to registry keys or files created by the program. There could also be files that are shared system files. Leaving a few files may be more unwanted than harmful. Many vendors uninstall programs do not get everything when they uninstall. Maybe it would be best to try looking for online support from the program vendor, or post the program, error and when you get it here and see if someone can help you run the uninstall successfully.

Answer 3

When the computer errors began, have you made any changes in your computer, like uninstalling other programs? If you uninstalled a program yesterday and today your computer is acting up, there’s a good chance that the errors are due to the uninstallation.

In that case, you have two options: Either you perform System Restore or reinstall the program. If you have a good System Restore point from before the failed uninstallation, roll your computer back to that time. Your software and related settings will return and your computer will be happy once again.

Reinstalling, on the other hand, can also be an effective fix. What commonly happens is that your previous removal of your other softwares may have included software dlls which are needed by the current program you're planning to remove. Therefore, you need to reinstall to bring back those needed dlls. Reinstalling the software and then uninstalling – without allowing the removal of the shared system files – should solve the computer error.

Finally, some uninstall programs only partially uninstall the program, leaving behind registry entries and empty folders. While you can safely delete empty program folders, use extreme care when attempting to clean out the registry values. Only advanced users should attempt such a cleaning on their own.

To make things easier, you can just use a software to perfectly uninstall and completely clean-up registry and program fragments to free you from the hassle. You may check this guide on uninstalled program error for more info.

Answer 4

Use the Programs and Features tool in the Control Panel and uninstall from there.

If that still fails, uninstall from Safe Mode.