Uninstaller Operations

sybrandus

One of the features I like the best about this program is the ability to sometimes get rid of remnants of programs. The list is far more comprehensive than the list in add/remove programs.

There is one thing though that perhaps could be improved in its operation regarding the custom uninstall. I initially reported this as a bug but your reply to me (and the documentation) made clear that this section of the program is an "approximation". This doesn't explain however what just happened ... at least I don't think it does. I'll use an example from today.

I uninstalled (the normal way this time) ZoneAlarm because I wanted to replace it. There was still a Zone Labs entry in the JV16 uninstall list. I checked it and then clicked custom uninstall. The documentation then states to leave the entries in the advanced key alone if you are unsure and then to click uninstall and the program will search for any uninstaller that exists and if it finds one to follow the instructions on the screen. I did that. It clearly did not find an uninstaller and no instructions or anything else came on the screen however it did delete the following entries "silently" (recorded from the backup).

@=""

@="cmd.exe /s /k pushd \"%V\""

@="%SystemRoot%\\Explorer.exe"

"HU100"="ZLN39784943537657-1001lý.~yÝwHý.Ðý.yPm‘|”ý.¼"

"UpdClientDialogState"="X,Y"

Only the last 2 were connected to Zone Labs.

The danger here is that it would be easy not to do a backup in this part thinking that you would only be doing a regular uninstall controlled by the program's own uninstaller and that if there was no uninstaller left over it would do nothing. This is not the case however. I had no opportunity to review what was about to be removed.

I restored this backup and then repeated the procedure without clicking the "run uninstaller" button and just manually deleted the two entries in the registry.

This one is minor compared to some others that I originally reported where literally dozens of subkeys and their entries were removed without the opportunity to review them first.

This is way beyond "approximate" and I still think it is a "bug" ... or at the very least a poor design ... in spite of your reply. I also don't think "Zone Labs" is so generic and can't imagine how the other keys were selected for removal.

In my opinion the "run uninstaller" button should not result in removed entries that cannot be reviewed beforehand when there is no uninstaller connected to the program. It should simply do nothing and then leave the rest for manual review and deletion. At the very least it should let you know what it is about to do.

Perhaps I'm misreading the instructions in the documentation but I went through them carefully and if I can do this ... so can others.

I should also mention that it will often "strip out numbers" in it's reading of the software name for example "Civ3 Conquests v1.22 Full" is read in the list as "Civ Conquests v Full" and "Ashampoo Antispyware 2" shows up in the software column as simply "Antispyware". It will also sometimes pick strange places to "split" the name as in "Malewarebytes' Antimalware" showing up in the software column as ' Antimalware (note the ' and "space" before the name).

This part of the program could be great and easily replace and improve on products like Revo Uninstaller if these "inaccuracies" were corrected.

Thank you for listening.

PS: I wasn't sure whether to post this here or in suggestions for the next version

jv16

Sybrandus wrote

I uninstalled (the normal way this time) ZoneAlarm because I wanted to replace it. There was still a Zone Labs entry in the JV16 uninstall list. I checked it and then clicked custom uninstall. The documentation then states to leave the entries in the advanced key alone if you are unsure and then to click uninstall and the program will search for any uninstaller that exists and if it finds one to follow the instructions on the screen. I did that. It clearly did not find an uninstaller and no instructions or anything else came on the screen however it did delete the following entries "silently" (recorded from the backup).

To be clear, did you use the Custom Uninstall or the Uninstall? You mention Custom Uninstall feature but if you used that all data to be removed was listed to the screen, yet you say that the feature removed entries "silently", which again would suggest that you instead used the regular Uninstall feature of the Software Uninstaller.

Sybrandus wrote

Only the last 2 were connected to Zone Labs.

This is indeed an error and shouldn't happen. I'm trying to find out what went wrong.

Sybrandus wrote

In my opinion the "run uninstaller" button should not result in removed entries that cannot be reviewed beforehand when there is no uninstaller connected to the program. It should simply do nothing and then leave the rest for manual review and deletion. At the very least it should let you know what it is about to do.

This is exactly what it does. The Run Uninstaller button of the Custom Uninstall feature does nothing else except finds the uninstaller of the given application. It does not remove any registry data nor any files.

Sybrandus wrote

I should also mention that it will often "strip out numbers" in it's reading of the software name for example "Civ3 Conquests v1.22 Full" is read in the list as "Civ Conquests v Full" and "Ashampoo Antispyware 2" shows up in the software column as simply "Antispyware". It will also sometimes pick strange places to "split" the name as in "Malewarebytes' Antimalware" showing up in the software column as ' Antimalware (note the ' and "space" before the name).

This is by design. The reason is that it's very difficult to detect what data is relating to what software. The idea of removing the numbers is to group together different versions of the same software. For example, instead of listing "Adobe Acrobat ver3" and "Adobe Acrobat ver4" the feature is designed to list only "Adobe Acrobat". This is because it would be impossible to remove only the other version without affecting the other.

sybrandus

Step by step here is exactly what I did and what happened on several occasions ...

1. Clicked Custom Uninstall to remove remnants

2. Checked to make sure there was nothing in the advanced tab path that was obviously wrong. Usually these are empty when you are dealing with remnants

3. Clicked the "Run uninstaller" button from inside the custom uninstall screen. Usually I am not expecting it to find an uninstaller when I am dealing with remnants however I click this in case I missed it or in case there are other versions on my computer.... and because it is suggested in the documentation. I had one instance for example where it ran the wrong uninstaller but the screen messages came up and I knew it ahead of time. This may have been because I didn't check the path in the advanced tab but I was protected because the system let me know what it was doing. This is how I thought it was supposed to work. Note that this is NOT the "uninstall" button which appears in the main screen as I am no longer in that screen.

4. When I click the "run uninstaller" button ... it begins to work with no screen messages and then just stops. Because it was clear that something was happening, I stopped and checked my backup which I posted in the last message. This is the issue that has happened several times and that I reported. After this process, the entry no longer appears in the main list.

5. Now I have to restore the "silent uninstall" from the backup (which I always make) and repeat the uninstall without clicking the "run installer" button. I just manually remove the registry entries and file entries (if any) after reviewing them in the registry data and files tabs.

PS: I just did a custom uninstall for remnants of Super Ad Blocker and it worked as it should and gave me an error message of "could not locate the product's uninstaller!" I then manually deleted 2 empty folders and one registry entry. Incidentally, the backup for this (I did it 3 times to confirm this) did not show the two empty folders that I deleted. When I go to do the restore for the purposes of testing so I can do it again, the file folders are restored even though they don't show up in the backup entry. If I just delete the registry entry, the files are not deleted even though the backup looks identical. In other words, the backup does not show the file folders deleted even though they have been and even though a restore puts them back.

Thanks again for listening

Sybrandus

sybrandus

Just to give you some further information, here are the entries which were removed on Sept 5th when I removed remnants of Limewire in the same way. It seems that this is very similar to the issues with the reg cleaner both removing drive and folder entries and showing some strange characters in the backup that were not in the registry key. If it would help you, I could do a restore on these entries (after creating a system restore point lol) and try it again to see if it happens the same way.

I can't do a restore on the ZoneAlarm entries since I have since re-installed it and I don't know if it would restore the same ZoneAlarm configuration. I believe there could have been 2 versions of ZoneAlarm on my computer. I will be removing ZoneAlarm once again as it stands now so I will do a regular uninstall and see if it leaves remnants which I can remove with JV16 to see if the issue repeats.

Here are the LimeWire backup entries ...

jv16 PowerTools 2009

Data fields are: Key, Entry's name, Value

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\OpenWithList\Excel.exe\, @, ""

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\OpenWithList\IExplore.exe\, @, ""

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\OpenWithList\MSPaint.exe\, @, ""

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\OpenWithList\Notepad.exe\, {KEY}, {KEY}

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\OpenWithList\Winword.exe\, @, ""

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\OpenWithList\WordPad.exe\, @, ""

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\drive\shell\find\command\, @, "%SystemRoot%\\Explorer.exe"

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\folder\shell\explore\command\, @, "%SystemRoot%\\Explorer.exe /e,/idlist,%I,%L"

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\folder\shell\open\command\, @, "%SystemRoot%\\Explorer.exe /idlist,%I,%L"

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\LimeWire\, InstallDir, "C:\\Program Files\\LimeWire"