The Layman's Guide to Manual Program Removal

Removing unwanted programs from your computer is usually as easy as clicking the remove button in the add or remove programs list. But there are times when knowing how to manually remove programs can really come in handy. So, for all intents and purposes, here is how it's done.

Deleting the Individual Files

First, you're going to need to delete all of the files that are associated with the program. We're going to use the Windows search tool to do this. Go to the Windows start menu and select Search from the lower right hand side of the programs list. When the search dialog box appears, select the All files and folders option and type the name of the program that you want to remove into the All or part of the filename field. Make sure that the Local Disk (C)drive is selected in the Look in field and then click on More advanced options. Click to check Search system folders, Search hidden files and folders and Search subfolders. Click the Search button to start the process. This may take a while, so be patient. When the search is complete you should see a list of filenames that are associated with whatever keywords you entered into the search field. Right-click on those files and select Delete to remove them from the system. Be very careful during this step. Don't delete anything unless you are absolutely sure that it belongs to the program that you're removing from the system. If you're ever in doubt, visit the program's main website or do a Google search to learn what files to look for in a particular software distribution. If you think you've deleted something in error, double-click on the recycle bin, right-click on the file that you deleted and select Restore to put it back in place.

Deleting the Registry Keys