Peter writes:

<<Has anyone found a reliable (and reasonably fast) uninstall program? On my
system with some 150G of files, it takes CleanSweep hours to scan, only to
tell me that it can't uninstall something!>>

I both agree and disagree with Peter's comments.

I've used Cleansweep now for around 6 years, and swear by it for
uninstalling programs.

I agree with Peter when he implies that after the recent change of
ownership, Cleansweep went downhill.
It's cleanup is now positively dangerous, in that it gives no warning when
it decides to delete files.

Having said that, I have found it takes very little time at all to
uninstall programs, PROVIDED you have it configured to monitor all
installations. Usually much less than 3 minutes. It's useless if the
installation has not been monitored, because then, as Peter seems to be
experiencing, it has to search the whole system, which does take forever.

But then, my HD is much smaller than Peter's, so perhaps the time grows
exponentially.

I like it primarily because, when it monitors any installation, it follows
and logs every action, thus uninstalling simply means retracing the same
steps in reverse, as it were. I find it rarely, if ever, leaves any
remnants behind, which can't be said for regular uninstalls.

And I like the fact that it makes compressed backups, complete with full
log, for everything it removes, so that if a shared file is improperly
removed, it can be very easily restored later in isolation. (That's only
happened to me once in 6 years). The log includes all registry entries, so
any action can be reversed if that should ever be necessary.

I've never found Cleansweep to have made a wrong move in the years I've
used it, both with W95 and now XP.

I don't use any of its general cleanup functions, as I have other dedicated
utilities for those. I'm not sure that I would want to completely rely on
its "redundant files" cleanup, though it does set it all out nicely and
clearly, and makes interesting reading.

I'm aware that a lot of people have found it conflicts with other software.
I certainly wouldn't have it running in the background. Only run it when
you are installing or uninstalling something. The trouble with that is, you
have to remember to turn it on.  And I don't use the internet monitoring
sweep (not even sure what that's supposed to achieve).

Windelete used to be the other popular one, but I haven't seen anything
about it recently.

I'm not going to buy into the Love/Hate Nortons debate, never having used
any of their products, though I've read plenty. Horses for courses, I think.

Don Penlington
 From the beach at Surfers Paradise.
http://www.geocities.com/donaldpen/
for sunny Queensland photos, fractal art, free computer tutorials, and more.

      "Hold No Punches.." Rode brings you great shareware/freeware
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