“How do I clear programs out that are not used and are taking up hard drive space?”
November 6th, 2007Here’s another question from a reader that I think will impact a lot of people.
"How do I clear programs out that are not used and are taking up hard drive space?"
Raise your hand if you’re a little unsure of how to get rid of a program once it’s been installed on your computer…
The Problem
Installing programs on your computer if you’re running windows has become a very easy process. A special program called an installer puts all the files where they need to go, and then like magic, the new program appears in your start menu. But unfortunately, getting rid of it when you don’t want it anymore is harder to figure out. So most people just let programs accumulate on their computer. Well that can change today, because today we’re going to take a look at the "Add/Remove Programs" feature of Microsoft Windows.
Add/Remove Programs
In order to get started, you have to make your way to the Windows Control Panel. You can get there from the Start Menu. I’ve included two pictures from windows XP that show you how to get there depending on which style of Start Menu you have, regular, or classic.
Once you open the control panel, look for something that says "Add/Remove Programs" and click on it. The Add/Remove Programs window will open and should look something like this:
All you need to do is click on the program you don’t want, and a button will appear underneath it like this:
Click the "Remove" program and an uninstaller program will start up, ask you a few questions and you’ll be done!
What if that doesn’t work?
Occasionally, something will have gone wrong and a program cannot be removed automatically using this tool. If this happens, the only thing you can really do is to delete the folder where the program was installed. Nearly every program you installed will have a folder somewhere in C:\Program Files\ . You simply have to locate the folder where the program was installed and delete it. BE VERY CAREFUL TO PICK THE RIGHT FOLDER.
Then just find any shortcuts to that program either in the start menu, or your Quick Launch Toolbar, right click on them and delete them. Occasionally, some shortcuts will be left behind even when you remove a program automatically, and you’ll still have to delete them.
On top of that, some automatic uninstalls leave the folder behind where the program was installed. It’s usually empty, or with just a few files, but either way, it’s safe to remove these folders once the uninstaller has run it’s course.
What if my program isn’t in the list?
If the program you want to get rid of doesn’t appear in the list of programs in the Add/Remove Programs window, something has probably been messed up and you’ll have to follow the same procedure that I described above, as if the automatic uninstall didn’t work.
