How do you get rid of persistent programs?

[Innoka]

Has anybody ever had a corrupted installation which add/remove programs can't uninstall? I have two installations of the same program listed in Win 2k. chkdsk says files are corrupted, but never actually cleans out my system. I have manually removed a device driver and associated program but there is a lot of crud in the system. Can anyone suggest anything because I don't know much about this.

 

[HellRaven]

Well, not sure exactly what you mean but here is what I do to get rid of any trace of a program that will not be removed through add remove. I don't what program you got but if it installed device drivers and stuff it must have been a wonderful program (Like AOL ). I would wipe out any installs of the program completely...

Delete the corrupted program folder in windows explorer
Go to start
Click Run
Type in regedit and then hit ok
Click on the registry menu at the top of the registry editor
Select export registry file (to back up the registry)
Type in a name and select a location for it to back up to
Click ok
We are back in Regedit now
Click the "+" next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Click the "+" next to SOFTWARE

Now you need to figure out which of the entries your software is listed under. Usually it is under the name of the publishers of the software, the producers of the software, or under the name of the program itself. For example, the game Half-Life is listed under "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Sierra On-Line" because Sierra is the games publisher.

Once you figure that out, delete the keys in the registry associated with the program. That should remove most of the traces of the program from your system except for any system files it installed or messed with or any other things it puts in (Like when AOL makes adapters in the network stack that aren't uninstalled with it)

 

[Oyeve]

I have one pesky program that wont uninstall, its called Jetfighter 4. I hate this POS! Freaking patch wont uninstall, freaking game wont uninstall, freaking POS doesnt even run! And the industry wonders why people pirate so much! Its because when you BUY a legitimate copy, a lot of times it sucks or screws up your PC! Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest.

 

[billandopus]

I would subscribe to the "registry" cleaning through manual means.

I've had some interesting experiences along the way though.

I managed to get a warez copy of Hitman from a friend just for a trial looksee to find out what the buzz was about. I'm not a gamer but I was "impressed" at the ripped version of Hitman being so small in space.

Of course, this may open a whole can of worms morally-wise but I won't get into that.

Anyways, I installed the game and it was prompted to create it's own folder. Fine. Played the game ... it was okay. Uninstalled it through the uninstaller offered ... left a whole bunch of crap in my system. Good thing I regularly backup with DriveImage so I reimaged my drive and it was all good.

My point is this:

while the game was installed ... I couldn't find any trace of the software installation in my registry. It wasn't under anything that I could see. Not the company name of the game which is EIDOS or Hitman. I looked everywhere and couldn't find any trace of it.

Strange.

Is it possible or even probable that the rippers engineered it that the registry entries were hidden in another area of the registry that would make it hard to find other than HKEY ... "software"? Why would they do something like this in the first place?

Just wondering.

 

[Verygreedy]

Hi. Yes. This happened to me with an the Diablo II files. It showed 2 of them and said it was corrupted... it ran fine. Some bug somewhere.. I assume no big deal.