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Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: dave rose who wrote (16358)	2/15/2001 6:51:09 PM
From: PMS Witch	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110631

Potential harm from not un-installing ... .EXE files: Probably no harm at all beyond disk space impact .INI files: If they are program specific, no harm beyond wasted space Temporary files are just another waste of disk space Redundant shortcuts will return error messages if the target isn't found Start Menu tree will return error messages if target cannot be located Entries in StartUp folder will fail at boot time Extra folders have very little impact on disk space, but still a waste .DLL files can bite. If you have an outdated, corrupt, or simply different .DLL file it will be viewed as legitimate. Smart installation software won't just overwrite existing files. Therefor, if software you're installing sees a bad .DLL on your disk, the correct .DLL won't get installed. Registry entries can be mixed too. Unused keys just waste space and cause no harm. If your system notices the keys and takes an inappropriate action based upon them, you could experience some hard to predict difficulties. Instructions added to the files appearing in System Configuration Editor can create serious mischief. When Windows attempts to execute programs that aren't located in the current default folder, a chain of folders is examined to locate the executable code. Entries added to this chain pointing to non-existing resources can cause mysterious results. The bottom line for me is that Murphy's law seems alive and well. Any possibility, no matter how remote, of something corrupting my system, and I'm facing a mess, so it seems. Novices should consider one of the many programs to automate the program removal process. Although not perfect, they are much better than facing the agonizing learning experience which follows performing this work incorrectly themselves. Although I haven't used it, other participants on this thread have posted favourable comments about Clean Sweep, from Norton (Symantec). Cheers, PW.