OK, Joel - O' Mighty One - 'splain this. If I have Program A installed, but I think Program B (or reinstalling Prog A, or maybe just no program) would be better for my purposes, how can I completely unintstall Prog A, so I can install Prog B, or? With a Goback or WinME Restore program, I can completely "GoBack/Restore" to some earlier point in time along my compy's time continuum. However, what if I've installed a couple other programs in the meantime? Will Goback keep my other programs installed with proper registry entries when I "Goback" or "Restore" my system to an earlier point just to eliminate Program A?! I've used CleanSweep - and occasionally, McAfee's Uninstaller - for several years with good results - more importantly, few if any bad results. Both progs let you track both installed/uninstalled files as well as registry entries. Further, each prog provides extra bennies besides just erasing all the leftover junk from a program "uninstall" or "Add/Remove programs." Eg, Cleansweep lets you move a program to a new location and keep old registry settings so your prog will operate in the new location. (Try *that* without special software.) jack payton On Wed, 4 Jul 2001 21:30:48 -0700 "Joel M. Blackman" <[log in to unmask]> writes: > Cleansweep and/or uninstaller X screw things up. Get Goback and you'll > almost never need them. When Goback reverts your hard drive, it is as if > whatever was never there. There is nothing left anywhere because the drive > has been rewritten to a time before the install. Tracking installs with > uninstallers that do that slows the install, and is likely to cause > problems. Jack is a very knowledgeable guy, but I have to disagree on this one. > > > If you're going to install CleanSweep, Uninstaller, or some such, it seems to be a > good idea to install it right after the OS/OS updates so it will track the installations of > the other programs. > jack payton > > On Tue, 3 Jul 2001 19:17:27 -0700 "Joel M. Blackman" > >[log in to unmask] writes: > > I do the OS, then all the OS updates. The very next thing is Goback in > case something gets screwed up. It might be a good idea to copy the hard disk at > > this point to a CD so you still have a clean registry. One of the last > > things is the anti-virus and/or system utilities, both of which can > > cause a lot of problems on installs. I am not sure what good running > > scandisk would do between installs, but it can't hurt anything. You might even > > want to defrag between installs, but it will take a month of Sundays to > > install all your software that way. If you can, get the most recent > > copies of all your software so you don't need to be doing all the updates > > separately. > > Keep an eye out for the version conflict manager so that all your OS updates > > don't get overwritten by older files. You may want to reinstall all the > > OS updates one more time after your software is installed, just in case > > newer files have been overwritten. > > > > > Original question: > > After having done another format and reinstall, I have two > questions: > > > Do others have an order of program installation, such as, first OS, then > > antiviral program, then word processor, etc? > > > > Do others have a routine for mitigating problems, such as, running > > Scandisk between each program installation? > > > > Demetri Kolokotronis The NOSPIN Group is now offering Free PC Tech support at our newest website: http://freepctech.com