Life Hacker.com recently featured a program called Revo Uninstaller. This program tracks your installs like Total Uninstall and Zsoft Uninstaller does so you can completely remove them. Also has a start up manager, secure deletion tool, junk files cleaner, browser history cleaner and a bunch of other stuff.

It is free ware and looks very interesting. Anybody try this program? Here is the Life Hacker article http://lifehacker.com/software/featured-wi...ller-282337.php

and the home page for the program.

http://www.revouninstaller.com/

Anthony A,

Revo Uninstaller don't "tracks your installs like Total Uninstall and Zsoft Uninstaller does so you can completely remove them."

It "scan before and after uninstall of an application you can remove unnecessary files, folders and registry keys left over in your computer."

It's not the same...

A subtle and crucial difference.

OK I see that now. That makes it even more interesting to me. I already use Zsoft Uninstaller. This program has many interesting features. The Hunter Mode sounds cool.

I posted this mainly to see if anybody here has used it what they think of it.

Be careful using it, as it has the potential of removing necessary system files - something which it did on my system which is why I went back to Total Uninstall.

I never was completely convinced by ZSoft's uninstaller. Yes it was quick but it just didn't seem to have the useability of Total Uninstall and most importantly Total Uninstall has never let me down, ZSoft's did the first time I used it.

Never heard of this Revo Uninstaller, though I seem to remember trying a similar program from 'Giveaway of the Day' a couple of months back and found it had the potential to cause problems so got rid of it. May give this a try though when I get a chance.

I find it hard to believe anything could be more effective than the search function in RegSeeker!

Total uninstall is not a freeware application though

There still is a freeware version of Total Uninstall around though. From what I have heard it's slow.

The Revo Uninstaller has a several other tools that seem very interesting though besides the uninstaller.

Andavari, could you explain what happened?

I not convinced any of these programs are totally safe. If you track an install with Zsoft or Total Uninstall and 5 months later you decide to uninstall the program you tracked so may things have changed on the system since than. How do you know if any of the files or reg entires for the program have changed since the install. Than you uninstall with the uninstaller programs and gut everything that is is the install log. The potential to do damage seems very real to me. I have been using Zsoft to track installs of programs I am trying out and than remove if I don't like a week or so later not half a year later so there isn't that many changes to my system at that point.

You can get the last freeware version here: http://www.aplusfreeware.com/categories/util/uninst.html

It is slower than ZSoft but is more effective and reliable IMO

I'm not totally sure what and why it removed system files (luckily it wasn't something that would kill Windows). Why it thought the program installed them I don't know because the program didn't install the system files. It's now a dead issue to me since I ditched the program altogether. Another program to stay the hell away from was that Giveaway Of The Day program called Cleanse Uninstaller - it is very prone to totally f'ing up and wanting to remove way too much.

That's the program this Revo Uninstaller reminded me of (seems to work in the same way)

I know it takes a snap shot of your system before the install and than after and compares the two and creates a uninstall log with the difference. If you do anything after the install of a program that creates files before you do the after snap shot it will record those new files. I immediately do the after snap shot when I install a new program so that doesn't happen.

I have forgot to do that a few times and played around with the newly installed program and than remembered I didn't do the after snap shot. I do the after snap shot and look at the log and there are all kinds of files that have nothing to do with the new program.

I'm sensing the Total Uninstaller might be the uninstaller app of choice-- right?

Also, is this an "active" program that runs constantly in your system tray?

Don't be afraid...

The problem is when we do what we shouldn't have done... Then we'll say that the culprit is the application like ZSoft Uninstaller and/or Total Uninstall... A typical human reaction. There aren't here a bug question - only a user performance issue.

Maybe some of the comments in the below link can clarify you better about your reasonable question.

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread....9778#post859778

Well Zsoft was recommended here. That's how I heard about it. It was being recommended over Total Uninstall. Now I don't know. Do a forum search on Zsoft and read the threads.

As for it being an "active" program running in the system tray. Zsoft isn't. I haven't used Total Uninstall but I don't think it is either.

No, Total Uninstall isn't either.

Exactly. The nice thing about Total Uninstall is if you have it close down to "install more than one program" then happen to log off or restart Windows it will run at startup so that it can finish the watched installation report. Although Total Uninstall is much slower it hasn't as of yet given me any grief.

Would you happen to know the name of the system file that it deleted? I've been using Zsoft Uninstaller for more than a few months now, and I load and uninstall alot of freeware.
I even monitor the programs that I self-install by just extracting zip files. I've never had a problem after uninstalling. I even loaded one very large partitioning utlility that many users had problems uninstalling due to several files that loaded into the system directory. I ran the program uninstaller, and then Zsoft's. I then did a file search, and a registry search for related strings. Except for one or two strings created after the program was installed, all files and registry keys were deleted.

I make sure to check the log files (Zsoft calls them *.zulog) after every installation and see if there are any files that have been added to my OS directory. If there are, I research them to make sure they were loaded by the program I just installed. Is it possible that you had an Auto Windows update at the same time Zsoft was completing it's "after" installation scan, or one of your security programs was updating?

I find Zsoft's log alot easier to read than the GUI file/registry screen created after a system scan by the last freeware version of Total Uninstall. I just scanned the images on Martau's site of the latest TU version (4.12) and see there's been a vast improvement. It does look like a great program, but unfortunately, it's not free. There's a nice multi-computer discount for offices and home networks, though. At this point, I'll save the $30, and stay with Zsoft.


Zsoft is recommended on several Wilders threads (although many also like Total Uninstall).


In addition, in May's "Tech Support" Alert, Gizmo added Zsoft's Uninstaller to his list of best freeware:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/more/extended.htm#59

Actually I don't remember, however it wasn't just a single system file.

This happened at least a couple of months ago. What I do remember is that they were some shared system files used by many programs, so who knows why it deemed them as installed by whatever program it was that I had used.

It wasn't the first time that ZSoft Uninstaller had me wondering why it did something as this incident had me scratching my head.

In any event this isn't a ZSoft Uninstaller bash fest, I want to make that very clear. For those that use and like it - each to their own, however the last free version of Total Uninstall does the job for me so it's my clear choice.