HELP!! Does anyone know how to wipe out and unistall a program??

Published on December 19, 2004 By Lady Aarielle In WinCustomize Talk

HELP!!

I'm at my wits end with my Incredimail.... I've used it for over a year and half and never had problems until about a month ago. Something corrupted the dictionaries and since then it highlights everything as misspelled no mater what language I'm using...... at any rate, the support people are clueless. I tried uninstalling and deleteing everything I could think of and waiting a few days hopeing it would have a clean install and I could start from scratch but that didn't help. As soon as I downloaded it it recognized my PC and installed everything with all the settings I previously had and the corrupted dictionary as well.

Can anyone tell me how to wipe out all traces of a program so that when I download it again it doesn't recognize my PC or, do any of you fellows know what makes it recognize my PC.... so I can remove it? This may sound insane but, is there a program that works like ad-aware but instead of removing spyware removes any and all traces of an installed program........ and the Incredimail registry thingies?

I'm not very PC savvy so I thought I'd ask you fellows.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Comments (Page 1)

Cyberworld

on Dec 19, 2004

I'm not sure about this,but hey you can try it.Well in my common logic thinking a program always leaves entries in the Registry,even when you unistall it,the entries remain,well not for all programs,but some tend to leave entries in case of re-installation.Well enter the Windows Registry by hitting Start-Run and type Regedit.When inside hit CTRL+F for the find dialog to come up.Type in the Incredimail name,or the company that makes it(dunno the name myself)and find all possible entries.Delete every entry you find.I hope this works for you,or else i don't know how to help.

PS:Deleting registry entries can be somehow tiring,cause a program could leave hundreds of them,but hey if you want to do something right you go straight to the source.
PS2:You might also consider Norton Win Doctor and somekind of Registry Cleaner utility to clean out traces and unused entries.Also try Norton Wipe Info,although i never actually used it,it says that it wipes data completely from your PC.

Hope this helps a bit...or else sorry

WebGizmos

on Dec 19, 2004

Lady Aarielle...I'd be careful deleting "everything" that has incredimail in it because you may be deleting "shared files" that might be used by another program. Whe I first got my PC I saw that Add/Remove never removed everything it was suppose to...so I bought and uninstaller and a reg cleaner...which in my opinion is the better way to go.

Posted via WinCustomize Browser/Stardock Central

Lady Aarielle

on Dec 19, 2004

Thanks, Cyberworld, at this point I am desperate..... I'll try anything! I'll go to Norton and see if I can find the programs you speak of and maybe it will work. Weather it works or not I appreciate the suggestion.

This me at this point!

Lady Aarielle

on Dec 19, 2004

webgizmos- thank you for the heads-up. If it's not too much trouble where would I get the uninstaller and reg cleaner? Did you use the Norton products that cybeworld mentioned or a different company.

If you have a link I'd appreciate it, thanks, again!

yrag

on Dec 19, 2004

I once removed Incredmail from someone's 'puter because of the same problem. It had left 150+ entries in the registry after the un-install. You'll never get them all and will probably trash your machine in the process. The Registry is neither for the novice nor faint of heart. If you're going to keep doing this with these kind of proggies (sorry, Hon, but you really know how to pick 'em

) then might I suggest a cleaner. http://www.pctools.com/registry-mechanic/ . It's very good and in your case, will be a real time/life saver........

werewolf

on Dec 19, 2004

There is also a place in the C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data folder which stores settings for many programs. All your settings for Incredimail might be stored there. You would have to delete that stuff too.

Lady Aarielle

on Dec 19, 2004

werewolf, thank you.... those I did delete as well as add/remove and anything I could think of but I apparently left things behind that I'm not familiar with...... so now I'm on a mission to 'hunt and destroy' all traces'!!

butch123

on Dec 19, 2004

Hi..I know how to do it. But its very technical because it writes addresses all over your computer.Do you have a program called System Mecahnics? With this program if you have it you can remove any deleted files. You can clean your registry all kinds of things, cause thats exactly where your problem probably is in the registry..its deleting the files but not the entry in your registry. So when you reinstall it checks the registry sees it was priorly installed and installs it as it was. If you dont have System Mechanics perhaps you have some kind of registry cleaner..try that, or an easy way is through your search bar..type in the name of the program that you are trying to erase completely from your computer ...let your search do a search and you've got to delete them manually but you have to be very careful ..if you delete the wrong file could be a lot of problems. Hope this helped.

Lady Aarielle

on Dec 19, 2004

Yrag, hi sweetie, thanks for the link. To tell you the truth the only reason I use Incredimail is because it imports all my email from different addresses. I tried Outlook Express a couple of times and it kept failing to retrieve mail from one account or the other and became a royal pain in the place you don't want a pain!

If you can suggest a better mail handler..... I'm all ears, cause I've just about had it with Incredimail.

Lady Aarielle

on Dec 19, 2004

butch123- I don't have either of those programs so, I'm going to try the "Registry Mechanic" and products you and others have suggested because I would rather not tangle with things I know nothing about...... if that fails then..... I may just blow up the PC!

werewolf

on Dec 19, 2004

M'Lady, you might want to give Thunderbird a try. Here a link to a guide, of sorts, you might be able to make a decision from there.

Guide: http://mozillanews.org/?article_date=2004-12-07+16-19-25

ARRRRGHHH, I cannot get that link to show correctly. Just copy/paste the remaining bits. Sorry.

Homepage: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/

Lady Aarielle

on Dec 19, 2004

Oh M'Lord, thank you for the links!!
Werewolf, Thunderbird looks interesting and am seriously contemplating never using Incredimail again if I can find something that functions similarly.

Lady Aarielle

on Dec 19, 2004

I'm off to clean my PC will keep you fellows posted.

Thank you so much for the replies.... I'll be back.

Sleeping Dragon

on Dec 19, 2004

Before the explosives, there is the recovery cd or wizard that came with your PC; but that leaves you with a "like new" pc that you have to reload everything. Of course you have to save everything first. But if you have a virus (I call it that because it keeps spreading in your registry, like a virus) then that may be the way to go. I think these guys know more than I do, but I spent about a year, one week, trying to delete adware that Norton would identify, but the next time I started up, it was there again. Sometimes under the same names, sometimes under different names. Sometimes 3 or 4, sometimes 10-15. I hope that is not the situation you are in, but before you blow it up, recover it.

Lady Aarielle

on Dec 19, 2004

Thank you, Sleeping Dragon, but I'm hoping that will be my last course of action..... I did it once a long time ago.

Hopefully, I'll be able to aviod it.

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