Remove software and files from your PC safely and easily
It’s common to fill space on a hard drive with games, productivity programs or files, such as music, digital photos and video clips. Some technology analysts believe we use less than 10 per cent of the programs installed on our computers.
The following is a look at how to safely — and easily — remove old or unused programs from your Windows Vista computer. Much of the advice also applies to older versions of Windows.
Decide what programs to purge
The first step is to decide what programs you no longer need. Try to keep only the programs you use regularly as it’s easy to become a digital packrat. If it helps, make a list of programs you want to keep and others you can do away with.
Has it been a year since your child touched that action game? Chances are you still have the original CDs anyway (should you want to reinstall it in the future), so perhaps it’s time to wipe it off the hard drive.
Have your music tastes changed since you went through that country-and-western stage in 2002? You can easily delete downloaded MP3 files or at least burn them to a CD to free up space on your PC.
If you’re unsure about a program that’s on your hard drive, you can always use your favourite search engine (i.e.,Windows Live Search) to see what the program is. For example, if you don’t plan on buying a camcorder, you can remove any preinstalled video-editing software that may have come bundled on your PC.
Ready, set, “Start”
The easiest way to remove a program from your hard drive is to look for an uninstall or remove option from within its program group. Click Start > All Programs and then choose the program you want to uninstall.
Once inside this program group, you will usually see an icon to launch the program (such as RealPlayer), a ReadMe file (documentation that tells you how to use the program) and, for our purposes, an option that says something like Remove RealPlayer or Uninstall RealPlayer. Click this option and follow the onscreen wizard to safely remove the program from your PC.
You may be asked to reboot your computer. Only click to reboot once you’ve saved everything that’s open at that time.
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If you want to free up even more room on your hard drive, go to Computer or Windows Explorer and right-click on the letter associated with your hard drive (usually C:). Click Properties; then click Disk Cleanup. Check off the desired boxes and it will tell you how much space it can free up.
When uninstalling a program, you may also get a message that says the program can remove a file that may be shared by another program. To be safe, keep these suggested files on your PC. (They shouldn’t take up much room on your hard drive anyway). Similarly, when you uninstall a game, the program may ask if you want to keep saved game files (i.e., a bookmark of your progress). If you think you will reinstall and play this game again, you can choose to keep these files.
Sometimes the program group may be the company’s name (e.g., Astraware Games). Move your mouse over the name, and it will reveal what program(s) are inside (e.g., Bejeweled).
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If you download a ZIP or exe file from the Net and then install the program to the hard drive, you can delete the original file once it’s successfully installed.
Keep in mind that your PC automatically creates restore points while you’re using your computer. That way, if you accidentally delete a program you want to keep, you can revert your PC back to an earlier time. To do so, click Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools. Click System Restore and the program will guide you through the steps.
Take “Control”
Some programs do not give you the option of uninstalling them from a program group. No problem. You’ll need to go to Start > Control Panel > Programs and Features.
It may take a few seconds for this page to load, but once it is finished, it will display a long alphabetical list of installed programs. Once you see the name of a program you no longer want on your hard drive, click it, then click Uninstall from the tab above and follow the prompts. A progress bar will show you how long it will take to safely remove the program. When it’s finished, you will see the list once again.
Go through the list, but leave those programs you are unsure of. Remember — you may use Microsoft Word all the time, so do not uninstall Microsoft Office as Word is part of it. Some programs may be unfamiliar to you but are required for another program to run. A rule of thumb is to ignore the unfamiliar program, especially if it doesn’t take up too much space on your hard drive. (You will see how many megabytes on the right-hand side of the program name.)
If the program is spyware or adware (such as SuperShopper Toolbar), then you may want to leave this for your spyware/adware program to sniff out and safely remove. Two good free programs are Ad-Aware and SpyBot; both are available at Download.com.
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This article focuses on uninstalling entire programs, but it’s even easier to delete individual files. Once you’re inside Computer or Windows Explorer, simply highlight the files you no longer want on your hard drive and tap the delete button, or right-click and select Delete. This will send all unwanted files to the Recycle Bin for safe keeping — until you’re sure you no longer want them
