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Revo Uninstaller

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Vlad

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This is a great utility I thought I'd pass along, great for modern machines or those to like to beta test. Revo Uninstaller scans your HD and shows you a list of all the installed programs. What it does is first make a restore point in case you want the program back, then run the applications built in uninstaller and after that's done it scans for all traces left behind such as folders and Registry keys.

You'd be surprsed what gets left behind when you just use the built in uninstaller. All sorts of Registry keys and sometimes entire directory trees. Its a handy tool to keep around.

http://www.revouninstaller.com/

A portable version is available as well.
 
Thanks for the info Vlad! I had the software, but I had
never used it. I see what you are saying about native
uninstall programs, and what they leave behind!

A while back, my PIII was hit by virus, and IE absolutely
refused to cooperate, and it was dead as a door nail.
After virus cleaning, IE still refuses to zoom on any site
and "The webpage is unavailable...." comes up. They are
telling me that something in my registry is screwed up.
I have a "registry workshop" software that allows for
editing the registry data. Where and how should I start?

Thank you

ziloo
 
Generally when a machine is compromised it can't ever be trusted since you'll never know if you got all of the virus/etc out or not. Seems like a backup and reload would be in order.
 
On the same subject, I've been thinking about making much of my software use local resources, such as local copies of DLLs. I'd also like to keep .reg files of registry entries made by the program installers.

Are there any utilities out there that facilitate this?
 
Chuck(G) said:
.....I'd also like to keep .reg files of
registry entries made by the program installers. ...
Click to expand...

I have a couple of these Registry "health issues" programs that
have several options related to registry maintenence. One of
the tasks is called "Registry Backup" and it says "This creates a
full registry backup using the Windows System Restore tool".
I have never used this feature though! I can PM you the
commercial names :) .

ziloo
 
Chuck(G) said:
On the same subject, I've been thinking about making much of my software use local resources, such as local copies of DLLs. I'd also like to keep .reg files of registry entries made by the program installers.

Are there any utilities out there that facilitate this?
Click to expand...

Revo Uninstaller won't delete anything you don't want it to. Like if you wanted it to uninstall the program and files left behind but keep the registry keys it can do that. After the program's own uninstaller is finished and it looks for things left behind it presents you with a check box list of things you can get rid of. It wouldn't get rid of anything shared though, it doesn't break the link to shared DLL's.

Also one thing to remember is there are different versions of DLL's that different programs use. Thats why the WinSxS system came about in XP and later to prevent DLL hell from happening.
 
I know--that's why I'm using a bunch of "dot-local" files. Essentially, what I'm working for is complete application isolation. (Even in Vista, you can set HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options!DevOverrideEnable:REG_DWORD to 1). That works well.

But what I'm after is a utility that adds the registry keys to the global registry on execution and removes them after termination. In other words, I don't want program installation or execution to modify my system.

Does this make sense? I try out a lot of code and don't want to manually delete or alter keys that the uninstaller forgot about.
 
Chuck(G) said:
But what I'm after is a utility that adds the registry keys to the global registry on execution and removes them after termination. In other words, I don't want program installation or execution to modify my system.

Does this make sense? I try out a lot of code and don't want to manually delete or alter keys that the uninstaller forgot about.
Click to expand...
The utility you describe sounds ideal. Would backing up the registry before installation and restoring it after removal get you where you want to be, or are there other requirements? If I'm testing anything particularly "experimental" I like to do so on a virtual machine; just make a snapshot beforehand and roll back when you're done.
 
Chuck(G) said:
I know--that's why I'm using a bunch of "dot-local" files. Essentially, what I'm working for is complete application isolation. (Even in Vista, you can set HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options!DevOverrideEnable:REG_DWORD to 1). That works well.

But what I'm after is a utility that adds the registry keys to the global registry on execution and removes them after termination. In other words, I don't want program installation or execution to modify my system.

Does this make sense? I try out a lot of code and don't want to manually delete or alter keys that the uninstaller forgot about.
Click to expand...

I see what you're getting at now. Something like that would be incredibly useful to a beta tester or trying something out before it goes on a production machine. But like Cosam if I'm messing with anything that has the potential to break important things I do so in a virtual environment.
 
Vlad said:
"Mankind has united in infinitely greater propose in the pursuit of
war than he ever did in the pursuit of peace."
Click to expand...

By the way Vlad, I loaned my DVD to a friend so I cann't say for sure,
but is that a line from the "Iron Man" movie :)?

ziloo
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I'm not sure why that movie got overshadowed but it's a good one. I'm not sure but regarding logging the changes made to a system I thought that was the objective of the Windows Add/Remove programs technique (actually going through there to install an application). Although I've given up on clean windows/registries for years so it's not something I take good note of. As Vlad said, if I'm doing software testing or malware, etc I use a virtual machine with a known good/fresh snapshot (all new changes are written to a new file) and when I'm done I revert it, blowing away all changes made.

You sacrifice speed for some stuff but in general it's a good way to check things out or have a good debugging environment (software debuggers installed and ability to truly roll back).
 
cosam said:
The utility you describe sounds ideal. Would backing up the registry before installation and restoring it after removal get you where you want to be, or are there other requirements? If I'm testing anything particularly "experimental" I like to do so on a virtual machine; just make a snapshot beforehand and roll back when you're done.
Click to expand...

When MS was deploying betas of IE7, they had a facility like this--it added the thousand or so (!) registry keys before registration and deleted them after execution.

What's really needed is the ability to temporarily append a list of keys to the main registry, I think.

The other nice aspect of this is that such a feature would allow for keeping much of the OS separate from the apps. Reloading the OS would be a snap--none of this business of reinstalling applications each time.
 
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