Removing Software from Your Computer

    While an automatic installer sounds like a great idea, it is not possible to perform the most thorough removal of software and associated files without some advanced preparation. Nor is it possible to perform the safest uninstall without some intervention from the user. This document describes the steps involved in performing the safest and most thorough possible removal of software from your computer.

Items to Remove

    There are two kinds of items to consider when removing software, and each requires its own approach to remove:
    Installed Items - Items placed on you disk(s) by an installer during installation, and one-time items installed when the software is run initially. The software itself, plug-ins, documentation, and preference files would be examples of these.
    Files Created by the Software - Files created by the software during normal use. Word processor documents, web pages, and spreadsheets would be examples of these. Also included for the purposes of this discussion are files with the same creator signature as an application being removed, even if the files were not actually created by the application.

Files Created by the Software

    Depending on the type of software being removed, there may be a lot of these or none at all. Most extensions and control panels don't create any files beyond possibly a preferences file.
    On the other extreme, there could be thousands of JPEG files downloaded from the web with creator of the program being removed. What is done with them will depend on your future needs for the information in the files, and the type of files involved.

    Some options for dealing with these files are:
    If possible, open the files in the program to be removed and save the files in a more universal format such as such as plain text that can be read by other applications.
    Assign a new creator signature to files with a common format such as plain text or JPEG files so they will open in a different application.
    If the files primarily contain text (such as word processing documents), change their creator signatures to that of your word processor and see if it will open them. if not, you may also want to change their file types to 'TEXT'. They will not open in their original format, but the text will be available.
    If they contain no information that will be useful after the software is gone, trashing them is usually the best option.
    Archive them with compression software such as StuffIt Deluxe in case you may need to access them again at some point in the future.

    Whatever course of action you choose, the best way to find these files is to do a file search for files with the same creator as the software being removed using the Find window.
    Tip: Specify "Visible and Invisible" in the Find window. Some software creates invisible files, and you'll want to trash those too.

Removing Installed Items

    There are three options for locating and removing items installed by an installer:
    Some installers offer an Uninstall option. Whenever possible, use it. The hope is that they know what to remove and will do so safely. Unfortunately, most installers do not provide this option.
    Use snapshots taken before and after the installation to determine what was installed.
    Manually look for files the installer might have placed on your disk.

    The first option is simple. Run the original installer, choose the option to Uninstall, and let it run.

    The second option requires that you created snapshots with File Buddy before and after installing the software. If you did so, open the List of New Items file and examine the items in the resulting list. (If you are warned that some items could not be found, click OK.) Trash the items that were installed and are no longer needed. This will typically be most or all of them, but you should review the list manually as you move items to the trash.
    Tip: If the list contains a large number of items, try trashing folders you know to be part of that particular install. Close the file list window, empty the Trash, and reopen the List of New Items file. When File Buddy tells you some items could not be found, click OK, and save the new list. The new list should be substantially smaller since the original list contained not only the folders you deleted, but the items inside those folders as well.
    IMPORTANT: Because of the wide variety of software and installer behaviors, there is no way to guarantee something installed by one installer is not used by some another program. Examples could be common folders, libraries, or fonts. As such, you are responsible for determining which items are no longer needed and can be removed safely.
    SkyTag Software, Inc. cannot assume responsibility if you install HappyApp, and then six months later when you uninstall HappyApp, SadApp really is sad because it won't run anymore. This is not a common problem, but you should be aware of it and not simply open the List of New Items file, select everything, and move it to the Trash. Doing so increases the risk of a problem later with the system software or another application.
    Unexpected dependencies such as this are the reason it is not possible to create a thorough and safe one-step auto-uninstaller.

    The third option requires the most time and creativity if the installer installed items anywhere outside of a folder created for the software. If you believe it did or are not sure, try the following:
    If you have not already done so, search for files with the same creator as the software you are removing, specifying "Visible and Invisible".
    Search for files and folders whose names contain a distinctive part of the software's name. For example, if you are removing HappyApp, search for items with names that contain "HappyApp" and "Happy".
    Almost all software puts something in the Preferences folder. Look through system Preferences folder and see if you can locate anything that appears to belong to the software you are removing.
    Depending on the kind of software being removed, it may be useful to look through the Extensions folder to see if anything was installed there that will no longer be needed.

    To see why all of of this is necessary, suppose you install HappyApp with creator 'HApp', and as a part of the install, the installer places a library of type 'shlb' and creator '????' named "HALib" in the Extensions folder. Suppose further that HappyApp creates a preferences file name "HA Prefs" with creator '????' (This is not recommended by Apple, but some software does it anyway.) in the Preferences folder. Unless you create snapshots before and after the install, it would not be possible at a later date to easily identify the library or preference file as a part of the HappyApp install.

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