I seem to have an enormous amount of programs listed in the control panel. Is there any way that I can get rid of some? I don't know what they do, or are for. How can I tell if they are vital to my system?
Windows has no record about what those programs do. The responsibility for that is with the user who installed them.
Uninstalling is normally easy, through the Add/Remove Programs function in Control Panel. Sometimes this doesn't work, and the program has to be cleaned out manually, with the help of some tools.
The first way to find out what a program does is to start it and see, perhaps look into its help function. The second is to search for it on the web. Usually the program's name or that of its maker can be found through Google or another search engine.
The most radical way to get rid of all the chaff is to reinstall Windows from scratch, but that, of course, means that all programs have to be reinstalled as well. It would take weeks on my main computers. On the other hand, sometimes a Windows installation gets damaged so deeply that even a Repair Installation can't fix it. Then Windows has to be reinstalled from scratch anyway.
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Windows won't help much
Thu, 2008-11-20 11:43 by admin
Windows has no record about what those programs do. The responsibility for that is with the user who installed them.
Uninstalling is normally easy, through the Add/Remove Programs function in Control Panel. Sometimes this doesn't work, and the program has to be cleaned out manually, with the help of some tools.
The first way to find out what a program does is to start it and see, perhaps look into its help function. The second is to search for it on the web. Usually the program's name or that of its maker can be found through Google or another search engine.
The most radical way to get rid of all the chaff is to reinstall Windows from scratch, but that, of course, means that all programs have to be reinstalled as well. It would take weeks on my main computers. On the other hand, sometimes a Windows installation gets damaged so deeply that even a Repair Installation can't fix it. Then Windows has to be reinstalled from scratch anyway.