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Uninstaller Alternative?
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<blockquote data-quote="jv16" data-source="post: 1031573" data-attributes="member: 98343"><p>The Software Uninstaller in jv16 PowerTools has basically two main parts.</p><p></p><p>When you use it to uninstall some app, say, Winzip, it will first run Winzip's own uninstaller. This is trivial and standard, this is the exact same thing what happens if you use the Windows Settings (Apps & Features) to uninstall something. All that Windows does is that it starts the app's own uninstaller. This is also the first and last step that many other so called uninstaller programs do.</p><p></p><p>But this is where things get different with jv16 PowerTools. Because I have developed a custom engine that will detect what is happening on screen and automatically click any relevant buttons to 100% automate the running of Winzip's uninstaller. Only other uninstaller program that I'm aware that can do this is Bulk Crap Uninstaller, but that also sometimes fails at this step. For example, it often fails to automate the uninstallation of IrfanView, a popular free image viewer.</p><p></p><p>This is a very difficult thing to do, because there is sadly no standard way how apps are installed or uninstalled in Windows. Not only that, we need to take into account that not everyone speaks English. So just looking for strings like "do you really want to uninstall this? [yes] [no]" doesn't work, because the user's system might be in German or Chinese. But since jv16 PowerTools is entirely multi-lingual, it knows about what strings to search, even in non English uninstallers and systems.</p><p></p><p>The second step is that jv16 PowerTools runs its own custom uninstallation engine that basically finds all possible registry and file system left-overs relating to Winzip. Again, one could think that this is really trivial thing to do, but it's not. It's very hard. For example, say that you make an app that simply searches the hard drive and system registry for matches of the app's name that user wants to uninstall and removes those. Easy, right? Well, yes. Until the user wants to uninstall Steam. And then you will realize that every Windows system comes with a ton of files and registry entries referring to "MSteams", which would match "steam", and if you delete those, you just bricked the computer.</p><p></p><p>While I call the custom uninstallation engine part the second step of the uninstallation process, it is actually the very first step of the system scanning. That is, before you even uninstall anything with jv16 PowerTools, it will scan the system for traces of installed software. This is why it can show you every single file and registry item that it would remove, should you want to uninstall some software with it. This feature alone is something that many other similar programs can't do. Or if they do that, there is not much you can do about this. With jv16 PowerTools, you can freely edit this list. </p><p></p><p>So, basically, uninstalling something in Windows is a very difficult task with many nuanced steps, and if you get any of those steps wrong, the user's operating system might get damaged. That is why most uninstaller programs are very bad in my opinion. All they do is run the app's own unininstaller and the display some pretty UI animations saying they will clean up left-overs, which they usually do very poorly.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jv16, post: 1031573, member: 98343"] The Software Uninstaller in jv16 PowerTools has basically two main parts. When you use it to uninstall some app, say, Winzip, it will first run Winzip's own uninstaller. This is trivial and standard, this is the exact same thing what happens if you use the Windows Settings (Apps & Features) to uninstall something. All that Windows does is that it starts the app's own uninstaller. This is also the first and last step that many other so called uninstaller programs do. But this is where things get different with jv16 PowerTools. Because I have developed a custom engine that will detect what is happening on screen and automatically click any relevant buttons to 100% automate the running of Winzip's uninstaller. Only other uninstaller program that I'm aware that can do this is Bulk Crap Uninstaller, but that also sometimes fails at this step. For example, it often fails to automate the uninstallation of IrfanView, a popular free image viewer. This is a very difficult thing to do, because there is sadly no standard way how apps are installed or uninstalled in Windows. Not only that, we need to take into account that not everyone speaks English. So just looking for strings like "do you really want to uninstall this? [yes] [no]" doesn't work, because the user's system might be in German or Chinese. But since jv16 PowerTools is entirely multi-lingual, it knows about what strings to search, even in non English uninstallers and systems. The second step is that jv16 PowerTools runs its own custom uninstallation engine that basically finds all possible registry and file system left-overs relating to Winzip. Again, one could think that this is really trivial thing to do, but it's not. It's very hard. For example, say that you make an app that simply searches the hard drive and system registry for matches of the app's name that user wants to uninstall and removes those. Easy, right? Well, yes. Until the user wants to uninstall Steam. And then you will realize that every Windows system comes with a ton of files and registry entries referring to "MSteams", which would match "steam", and if you delete those, you just bricked the computer. While I call the custom uninstallation engine part the second step of the uninstallation process, it is actually the very first step of the system scanning. That is, before you even uninstall anything with jv16 PowerTools, it will scan the system for traces of installed software. This is why it can show you every single file and registry item that it would remove, should you want to uninstall some software with it. This feature alone is something that many other similar programs can't do. Or if they do that, there is not much you can do about this. With jv16 PowerTools, you can freely edit this list. So, basically, uninstalling something in Windows is a very difficult task with many nuanced steps, and if you get any of those steps wrong, the user's operating system might get damaged. That is why most uninstaller programs are very bad in my opinion. All they do is run the app's own unininstaller and the display some pretty UI animations saying they will clean up left-overs, which they usually do very poorly. [/QUOTE]
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