Giveaway of the Day Forums

1. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   Just a quick reminder that this type of app will often Not remove everything and will Not undo every change made when you install software. And that’s usually OK, but not always. Software can make changes to Windows that it really shouldn’t – the developer focus can be strictly on getting the software to work as easily as possible, and not every developer is highly skilled. New versions of software can stop using things that were used previously, but the developer(s) never removed all of the code relying on those things [generally files &/or registry entries]. Software may add something that’s incompatible with your system &/or other installed software, but uninstalling that software, using the built-in uninstaller or another app, may not remove the incompatible part(s). And while less of a problem with Win10, because it’s refreshed once or twice a year, install enough software, and eventually you can have problems with bloat, with too many files &/or registry entries, even if you uninstall a lot of it.

   There are many people claiming that neither type of bloat will ever matter – none of them can snap their fingers and make it better when/if it does. It’s up to you to decide how to manage risk. For many people installing a fresh copy of Windows and starting over isn’t that big of a deal, so not worrying too much about risk makes sense. If you run Win10 and you’ve got hundreds or thousands of older games that you’ve set compatibility settings for, you Do Not want to make every one of those settings again. Starting over is obviously something you want to avoid.

   It’s not really the software uninstaller’s fault – there’s nothing more that the developer(s) of Soft Organizer Pro could do. Undoing every change made during a software install can mean putting things back the way that they were, not just removing what was added, and short of restoring an image backup, that’s not something an app can do. Searching for files or registry entries using the name of the app you want to uninstall will miss things. Searching for orphans in the registry – entries that point to nowhere – will miss things too, and that’s basically what registry cleaners do. Soft Organizer Pro will record the changes made during software installation, and that can help, but it won’t show you every change, or allow you to undo every change – no app will do both – because some stuff can’t be removed, but rather things have to be put back the way they were, like restoring a backup. Soft Organizer Pro will perform a backup of the stuff it’s removing, in case it breaks something, but if it breaks Windows that’s little help – you have to run Soft Organizer Pro to restore that backup, & if Windows won’t start, you can’t run it.

   All of that is Not to talk you out of using Soft Organizer Pro or Revo or whatever uninstaller you choose, but rather to point out their limitations. Windows is Not Android, where removing an app removes that app – all of it. Microsoft’s plans for its Store would have gotten us a good way down that road, but that failed. Next up is Windows X, and if that works, some of its tech will make it into Win10, so there is hope, if it is a ways off.

   Posted 3 years ago #
2. 

   gergn
   Member

   Personally I do not use Soft Organizer Pro as an uninstaller, but to check the changes the activation of software makes in the registry or elsewhere in the computer. Mostly when testing a giveaway in (on?) a virtual machine. In that respect it is excellent software.

   If I like software I tested in a virtual machine, I will restart the virtual machine and use Cameyo to make a portable version of the software. I then can use that portable on my production machine as long as I like. When I delete that Cameyo run folder, my production machine is clean again. So I uninstall by delete.

   Posted 3 years ago #
3. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   Cameyo's a cool tool, and your method probably works well. DO be aware that Soft Organizer Pro will hide some changes from you, but Cameyo likely makes up for it. A few years back I was doing quite a few conversions with Cameyo, and at that time found that I could short-circuit its monitoring based on what I found separately monitoring the installation & running of whatever app. That gave me better results, though I've no idea if that sort of thing would help today as Cameyo has probably gone through many versions by now.

   FWIW...
   I use a VirtualBox Win7 Ult 32-bit VM with InstallWatch Pro for monitoring most installations. I also have an XP VM set up the same way, but too many apps won't install & work in XP nowadays for it to see regular use. The installations in XP & Win7 are the same, and XP doesn't have as many registry hives as Win7, so no situations where you get a couple of hundred thousand new registry entries when the hive with Schema gets rewritten. InstallWatch Pro will not work in 64-bit Windows, so for 64-bit only apps I use Win7 Home 64-bit or Win10 Home 64-bit VMs with Regshot2, though the monitoring results aren't as nice as InstallWatch Pro. If a registry entry or file is already present in Windows, when/if a software install wants to add the same thing it won't be recorded, since there effectively was no change. To minimize that sort of thing all of my testing VMs have barely any software installed, and I store reference copies of the .vdi VHD files -- after monitoring one or more installations, I'll copy the reference .vdi over the one V/box is set to use. That easily wipes the effects of any app installs. I have a minimal copy of Win10 Pro installed that I use rather than booting to a WinPE USB stick, & that copy of Win10 has Hyper-V [which is incompatible with V/Box], so I can *sometimes* try Win10's Sandbox the same way, though I haven't been terribly impressed -- maybe with Win10 2004 it's improved?

   InstallWatch Pro is an old free app, that unfortunately won't run in Win10. It gives saveable lists of files added & files modified, while showing registry entries for HKCR, HKCU, & HKLM broken down into added, deleted, & modified categories, that can each be saved as a .reg file. Regshot2 is a harder to find rewrite of the open source Regshot, which works better in Win10 -- both Regshot & Regshot2 give you text or .reg files showing what changed in the registry, one to redo the changes, & one to undo the changes [the undo may or may not work]. Since neither InstallWatch Pro nor the Regshot apps are uninstallers, they don't have to worry about letting you break anything, so they give complete listings of all changes. That is not true of Soft Organizer -- like very other uninstaller I've tried, it will hide some things from you, so you won't always get a 100% accurate change list.

   Posted 3 years ago #

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