Puter Question

WH_Conley · March 21, 2008, 10:54:37 PM

Time to renew my anti-virus program (Mcafee), course the version I had no longer available, download the new version, says I have to remove Spybot search and destroy to install it. Went to spybot, did the uninstall, still there. Went to control panel, says it can't find the uninstall file. How do you get rid of it, the simple way for puter dummies?

Dale Hatfield · March 22, 2008, 04:18:28 PM

restart and check back to see ifn it went away >

WH_Conley · March 22, 2008, 05:26:12 PM

That was about my third or fourth attempt. >:( Thanks anyhow.

thecfarm · March 22, 2008, 08:22:04 PM

I'm no computer expect.But sounds like a piece of that program is still there.When I did the Norton Anti virus I had to go to thier website and downlaod a program to remove all of Norton.Than I deleted out that program.I could not find it with a uninstall on my computer either.Good luck.

SwampDonkey · March 23, 2008, 07:32:25 AM

Sounds like you went and deleted the folder and not the program dependencies through the uninstall program. So now what your faced with is removing all instances of the program from the key registry. I would not attempt that unless I knew what I was doing. 'Registry Mechanic' may be of some use there. It's a commercial program, not part of Windows. You could reinstall Search and Destroy, then use the uninstall in Control Panel or in the Program directory or on the Start menu under it's folder name.

DouginUtah · March 23, 2008, 10:14:15 AM

I would think that CCleaner would be able to clean out the remaining garbage.

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

Warbird · March 23, 2008, 12:29:42 PM

Quote from: DouginUtah on March 23, 2008, 10:14:15 AM
I would think that CCleaner would be able to clean out the remaining garbage.

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

That was going to be my suggestion. My brother had a couple of half deleted programs and a bunch of other stuff wrong with his Windows system (many blue screens of death, problems booting, etc). I ran this on it, it deleted the two 'half programs'. Then I ran the registry cleaner portion of it. I had it delete everything it found but did have it back up the registry before deleting all the messed up entries it found (just in case).

His computer has been happy ever since. In fact, I think so highly of ccleaner and how it speeds up a Windows box that I recommend you run it monthly.

One word of warning and some advice. When you first run the program, click the "analyze" button at the bottom first. Then have it actually run and delete everything. Once that is done, click the "Registry" button on the left. Click "Scan for issues". Once that is done, make sure everything is selected and click "Fix selected issues". It'll ask if you want to backup your registry, I recommend you do (it's easy). Once that it done, click "Fix all selected issues" in the little box that opens, then confirm you really want to do that.

Now for the warning... sometimes ccleaner removes toolbar settings, custom window views, etc. This does not mean your computer is messed up. Just go back and set your views and toolbar back to the way you like 'em. then enjoy a much faster and cleaned up PC.