Betty wrote:
>I found this remainder stuff left on my system from where they had 
>downloaded "freebies" and then deleted, rather than buy and the 
>delete  was not clean and complete.>>


The usual method to get rid of these remnants is either delete to the 
recycle bin (not advisable because you or a "cleanup" utility might 
inadvertently empty the recycle bin) or rename the file or folder---eg if 
it's a folder with remnants just rename the folder from say Frisbie to 
Frisbieold.

Then if nothing appears to want to use any of the contents you can safely 
delete the folder after say a couple of weeks.

There's a good reason why some uninstalls don't remove everything. It's 
because that with some programs, they may insert new files of a common 
nature into your system. If you install some new program later, it will see 
that that file is already present in your system so won't install it again. 
If, later still, you delete that file, then program B will see that it is 
now gone and will then give you an error message.  But more often it's no 
more than sloppy programming.

It doesn't happen very often, usually only with a very major piece of 
software--perhaps a new browser or word processor which might leave files 
for other software to use. These common files are hardly ever contained in 
the actual program folder, but may be placed within the Windows folder----a 
practice frowned upon by Microsoft
and, I understand, largely forbidden by Vista.

By renaming the obsolete folder or file, Program B won't be able to find 
the files so you will soon know if there is anything vital before you 
really delete it.

Don Penlington




 From the Beach at Surfers Paradise in sunny Queensland.
Computer tutorials, local scenery,  and other things at my website:
http://users.tpg.com.au/deepend/index1.html

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