The Cutting Edge: Computing / Technology / Innovation : How to Clean Up That Windows Clutter Safely
If you’ve been working with Microsoft Windows for a year or two, you may have noticed that it tends to take over your computer with a bewildering number of program files stored in all sorts of sub-directories identified by cryptic names.
The more Windows application programs you install, the worse the mess gets. It’s a lot like a city with no building standards and no zoning laws. You never know what’s going to show up on your hard disk, or where. Sooner or later, you need to clean things up by getting rid of programs and data files you no longer use--and that’s when big problems can occur.
How do you know which files belong to which program? It isn’t wise to just open up the File Manager program within Windows and begin deleting files. If you delete the wrong one, you could cripple your computer to the point that it won’t run properly.
What you need is the equivalent of an urban renewal program for your computer to safely get rid of all that blight. Fortunately, there is a solution: UnInstaller, version 2, published by MicroHelp Inc. of Marietta, Ga., ((800) 922-3383) can be purchased for about $45 at software stores. UnInstaller is not perfect, and it requires considerable care. But it’s much safer than trying to delete the program files on your own.
The trouble with Windows applications is that they contain dozens--sometimes hundreds--of files, which is why they usually come on more than one diskette. They all come with a built-in installation routine, but rarely do they include one for uninstalling them.
UnInstaller 2 was designed to take most of the guesswork out of getting rid of unwanted Windows applications and to make the task easy. (It is also a Windows application, but it is probably the last one you’d want to get rid of. It can’t--and won’t--attempt to uninstall itself, but the manual tells you which files to get rid of to do the job yourself.)
If you are the type who never reads computer manuals, here’s a painfully learned word of advice: Read the UnInstaller 2 manual before you start using the program. It is short, and you’ll learn a lot about how Windows application programs are constructed. Most of all, you’ll learn how to use the program judiciously so that you are unlikely to use it to delete files that are needed to run Windows itself or applications you still want to use.
Or you can plunge ahead without reading, and probably end up crashing Windows altogether so that it has to be reinstalled from diskettes. Which raises an important issue: How many of you actually have diskettes stored away from which you could reinstall Windows or other applications that came on your computer?
For the past several years, new computers have been sold with Microsoft Windows and a collection of other programs already installed on the hard disk. Typically, no floppy disks are included from which you could reinstall the programs if necessary.
Instead, there is a utility program that will copy the files onto diskettes for safekeeping if you will only take the time to do so. If you haven’t made these backup copies of the programs that came on your computer, do so today. Buy several boxes of high-density, pre-formatted diskettes and give yourself plenty of time at the machine for it to make the copies for you. Without those diskettes you have no way to recover if you do something wrong with UnInstaller (or File Manager).
There are two important things to remember about using UnInstaller 2: Be sure to exit out of all your other programs before you begin to use it, and always run the Smart Links routine before you begin choosing which programs to get rid of.
Smart Links reads through all of your Windows programs and files and figures out which files belong to which programs. This is critical because sometimes programs share use of the same file. Smart Links can see that connection, and UnInstaller 2 will then tell you not to delete that file.
When everything works smoothly, getting rid of a Windows program with UnInstaller is merely a matter of a few mouse clicks. First you click on the image of the Windows group icon containing the program, then you click on the program icon itself.
The safe way to carry out the next step is to instruct UnInstaller to make a trial run at deleting the program. It will analyze the files and identify those it would delete. If you approve, you can cause the files to actually be deleted. Or you can take the precaution of just having them removed to a compressed backup format to see if your computer still runs properly without them. If there are problems, the removed files can be restored.
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In addition to removing files, UnInstaller 2 will also remove program, file and Windows group icons where appropriate. It will also clean out sections of the WIN.INI file, where some programs have a bad habit of inserting information about themselves.
The UnInstaller 2 manual warns that its methods work about 90% of the time. But there are instances that can mislead UnInstaller 2 and cause you grief.
For instance, I just installed version 2 of Procomm Plus for Windows, a communications program. It deleted unneeded files from the previous version, overwrote some files and added some new files, all in the same sub-directory as the old version.
But it also created a new Windows group icon, leaving the old one in place. When I ran UnInstaller 2, it revealed the old Procomm group and indicated that I could safely delete files and icons from it. But those icons now came from new Procomm programs. Had I allowed UnInstaller 2 to remove them, I would have been deleting new program files that the Procomm installation had just updated.
The lesson here is that you really do have to achieve some understanding of how your computer works so that you can make intelligent decisions when you need to make some modifications. You’ll find the UnInstaller 2 manual to be an excellent primer in helping you understand how Windows behaves.
