1438214246342.025 How to Completely Uninstall / Remove a Software Program in Windows without using 3rd Party Software? ­ AskVG Windows Tips » Browsers » Help & Support Software Themes More » Best of Search How to Completely Uninstall / Remove a Software Program in Connect with Us Windows without using 3rd Party Software? Subscribe: RSS feed | Email newsletter Generally all computer users install various software programs regularly. Sometimes they keep Follow us: Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | YouTube them and sometimes they decide to remove them. To remove a program in Windows, we uninstall it from Control Panel but many times the default uninstallation utility provided by the program doesn't remove the program completely. It lefts some entries in Windows Registry, some files in various folders in your hard disk drives. These leftovers might slow down your system and there is no point to keep them in your system. There are many 3rd party software like Revo uninstaller, etc are available on Internet which claim to completely uninstall a software program in Windows but sometimes these software also fail to completely uninstall a software from your system. We here at AskVG always try to do the things ourselves so today in this tutorial, we are going to share some easy to use steps which will help you in completely uninstall a software program in Windows. So without wasting time lets start the tutorial. We have taken Mozilla Firefox as an example in this tutorial: Latest Articles We have divided this tutorial in 4 steps: [Fix] Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 10240 Not Appearing on Windows Update Uninstall Using Control Panel How to Restore Previous Windows Version After Delete Remaining Files and Folders of the Program Upgrading to Windows 10? Remove Software Keys from Windows Registry How to Perform Clean Installation of Windows 10? Empty Temp Folder [Guide] How to Free Upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 or 8.1 STEP 1: Uninstall Software Using Control Panel Download Windows 10 Offline ISO Files and Create Installation Media First thing first! Uninstall the software using Windows Control Panel. Windows 10 Now Available for Download and Free Upgrade Windows XP and earlier: Things You Should Know and Do Before Upgrading Open Control Panel, double‐click on "Add/Remove Programs", select the program name and to Windows 10 click on Uninstall button. It'll remove it. [Review] Which DTH Service Provides Maximum HD Channels in India? Windows Vista and later: Open Control Panel, click on "Programs and Features", select the program name and click on Uninstall button. http://www.askvg.com/how­to­completely­uninstall­remove­a­software­program­in­windows­without­using­3rd­party­software/ 1/14 1438214246474.916 How to Completely Uninstall / Remove a Software Program in Windows without using 3rd Party Software? ­ AskVG STEP 2: Delete Remaining Files and Folders of the Program Even though you have uninstalled the software using Control Panel, some files of this program might still remain in a few system folders. To delete these leftovers, you'll need check following folders: %programfiles% %appdata% If you find any folder with the name of the software program which you uninstalled using 1st step, delete it. NOTE: You just need to type the above mentioned text in RUN or Start Menu search box and press Enter. It'll open the folders directly. Program Files folder: Application Data folder: http://www.askvg.com/how­to­completely­uninstall­remove­a­software­program­in­windows­without­using­3rd­party­software/ 2/14 1438214246543.534 How to Completely Uninstall / Remove a Software Program in Windows without using 3rd Party Software? ­ AskVG NOTE 2: 64‐bit system users will also need to check "C:\Program Files ﴾x86﴿" folder. Here we assume your Windows is installed in C: drive. If you installed Windows in any other drive, replace C: with that drive letter. STEP 3: Remove Software Keys from Windows Registry You'll have to be very careful while following this step. Follow this step only if you are comfortable with Windows Registry and if you have used Registry Editor in past. When you uninstall a software program, many times its entry in Windows Registry is not deleted by the uninstaller. It might increase Windows Registry size. To completely uninstall the software, you'll also need to delete its key from Windows Registry. 1. Type regedit in RUN or Start Menu search box and press Enter. It'll open Registry Editor. 2. Now go to following keys one by one: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software 64‐bit system users will also need to check following extra key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node Once you go to the above mentioned keys, look for a key with the name of your uninstalled software. If you find a key, delete it. If you get an error while deleting a Registry key such as "Cannot delete key: Error while deleting key", you'll need to take ownership of the key as mentioned in following tutorial: ?Guide] How to Take Ownership ﴾Permission﴿ of a Registry Key in Windows] Sometimes the key name might be based on the company name or developer name so if you suspect a key, expand it and check whether its related to the uninstalled software program. If yes, you can delete it. http://www.askvg.com/how­to­completely­uninstall­remove­a­software­program­in­windows­without­using­3rd­party­software/ 3/14 1438214246598.089 How to Completely Uninstall / Remove a Software Program in Windows without using 3rd Party Software? ­ AskVG PS: Make sure to take a backup before deleting anything from Windows Registry so that you can restore it later if something goes wrong. To take backup, right‐click on the key which you are going to delete and select "Export". It'll save a .REG file containing the backup of that key. PS2: Expert users can also find all occurrence of the key with the name of uninstalled software using "Ctrl+F" and delete them. You'll have to be very cautious for it. Delete the key only if you are absolutely sure that the key was created by the uninstalled software. STEP 4: Empty Temp Folder At last you can also empty Temp folder which contains temporary files and cleaning this folder is absolutely safe. To empty Temp folder, type following one by one in RUN or Start Menu search box and press Enter: %temp% temp It'll open Temp folders. You can empty them. If Windows shows errors while deleting a few files, leave them. These files might be used by some running software or Windows services. http://www.askvg.com/how­to­completely­uninstall­remove­a­software­program­in­windows­without­using­3rd­party­software/ 4/14 1438214246646.873 How to Completely Uninstall / Remove a Software Program in Windows without using 3rd Party Software? ­ AskVG That's it. After following the above mentioned steps, you'll be able to completely uninstall and remove a software program from Windows. If you have any question or suggestion, feel free to post them in your comment... Share this article: Facebook | Twitter | Google+ | Reddit | Tell a friend Posted in: Software, Troubleshooting, Windows 7, Windows 8 / 8.1, Windows Vista, Windows XP Other similar articles that may interest you SBar: Windows 7 Taskbar Clone for Windows XP and Vista Freeware to Show Christmas Tree on Your Windows Desktop Windows 8 UI Bug Causes Windows XP Style Classic Balloon Notifications in Taskbar Has Microsoft Removed Show Desktop Shortcut in Windows 7 and Later? Add Context Menu Option to Extract / Unpack Files from MSI ﴾Microsoft Installer﴿ Package How to Enable New “Compact Navigation” Feature in Google Chrome? Make Toolbar and Addressbar Auto‐Hidden Comments David S. Thanks VG! I thought that I had seen that method elsewhere, but your tutorial on it by far passes what the other tech said. Thanks Again Klem U are a Godsent for post, keep it up Mani its really useful. Thanks a lot! kami thanks..............it really worked Valoo Your tutorial is such an interested one, thank you for such a help you have rendered to ppl like me. Remain blessed. Nichole http://www.askvg.com/how­to­completely­uninstall­remove­a­software­program­in­windows­without­using­3rd­party­software/ 5/14 1438214246730.801 How to Completely Uninstall / Remove a Software Program in Windows without using 3rd Party Software? ­ AskVG Amazing thank you !!! AG This absolutely, positively works. Thank you so much !! Now I can play demo games over and over !! Jax This helped a lot. Many thanks, VG! Kat Thank you very much! I run Secunia PSI on my computer which tells me if any programs are insecure. Even though I had uninstalled Mozilla Firefox, Secunia PSI still recognized it as being there since pieces of the program were still in my computer. I'm not computer savvy, but your instructions were easy enough for even me to follow. After going through all of your steps, it disappeared from Secunia PSI. Thanks again for your help! Alexander Help me, please! I'm trying to uninstall Nero trial. I followed all of your steps but there is still a Nero folder which ,cannot be deleted ﴾ C:\Program Files ﴾x86﴿\Common Files\Nero﴿ with files such as LBFC.dll, NB.dll NBBurn.dll, NBService and NeroAPIGlueLayerUnicode.dll. I'm desperate, it's very annoying! ﴿: Thank you VG ^^ Most of the times these files can be deleted after a reboot. If it doesnt work, you can try Unlocker: http://www.askvg.com/download‐unlocker‐file‐unlocking‐utility‐for‐windows/ Surya Thanks a lot.Helped me to reinstall IDM :P zenab ﴿: Great stuff thanks in lots Erik Tried all that ﴾with trying to delete IE folders﴿‐‐ nothing works.