Revo Uninstaller Questions

Considering installing Revo for the first time in I guess 10 years. My last experience with the program wasn't very good, so I'm a little nervous. The problem is I think the Windows updates problems with XP late last year may have led to some corruption with Comodo Programs Manager somehow. For whatever reason, after I had problems with updates in early December, CPM stopped recording installations. I don't want to just get rid of CPM, since most of what's on the PC was monitored when it was installed, and I could easily perform those removals using it, but I think it's time to see if I can get my head around Revo, especially since so many of the experts at MG seem to be deploying it at least from time to time.

Some questions:
1. Does Revo record installations like Comodo or does it use some sort of advanced search or online database feature to find files and registry keys?
2. Is there a better uninstaller than Revo? I have heard Glary Utilities is really good, and I guess there are numerous out there.

Thanks for advice...

 

Hey AtlBo, the pro version of Revo has monitoring abilities plus the forced uninstall option, the free version doesn't. Check out the Main Features here buddy- http://www.revouninstaller.com/

As for other uninstallers, the only other I used was GeekUninstaller, but went back to the free version of Revo.

 

Advanced Uninstaller free is available from Tucows. It's one of the sites I trust.

 

I switched to Iobit a while back and have not had any issues with it.

Iobit Uninstaller

 

Nothing irritates me more than THE NEED for uninstallers! "It's in the rules for writing Win Programming! Go back and delete all the files and all the settings created by your program!"

Of course, no one's been a bigger or longer offender than Microsoft itself. Their own rules - and I don't think they've ever created an Office Uninstaller that's completely removed their own product. Grrr. Office95 didn't, O-98 didn't, O-2000, on and on. It's like Microsoft creates a dog park and acts like THEIR dog doesn't need poop-bags, as if every computer in the world wants to step in THEIRS. Grrrr.

 

Hi AtlBo, The freewae version of Revo does not record installations like Comodo, nor does it use any type of online database as a reference for uninstalling broken uninstalls. On the other hand, the PRO version of Revo does both (currently on sale for $19.69 USD). It also does batch uninstalling, forced uninstalling, and comes with the typical system cleaning nonsense that comes with pretty much any program you purchase these days (I just saw that WinZip comes with system/registry cleaner... WTF?) The nice thing about Revo Pro is that it creates logs that you can actually read, review, alter, and add to, making for some interesting opportunities. Unfortunately, when it comes to the registry, which is being read from and written to hundreds of times per second by various Windows subsystems, Revo necessarily logs several hundred registry entries per install, even small and seemingly simple installs. Many of these registry changes involve CLSID keys with their cryptic contents. It seems overwhelmingly likely that many of these registry changes have nothing at all to do with the installation but are instead changes made by Windows as a matter of course (changes that would have been made even in the absence of the installation). So, what is the average computer user going to do with those keys? Delete them all? Delete some of them? Which ones, and why? Sure, uninstallers like Revo Pro are capable of getting rid of every last change made by a particular program during installation, and that's great...... but what else is it going to get rid of?

I purchased the Pro version of Revo but have yet to use the program to fully uninstall a single program, mostly because of the huge number of registry keys that would be nuked with each uninstall operation; keys that I cannot even begin to decipher (i.e. CLSID keys). Things aren't as simple as they were with Win95/98 when I used Quarterdeck CleanSweep to monitor installs. At that time, Windows wasn't so hyperactive, wasn't constantly reading and writing hundreds of registry entries per second. Back then, the keys that changed were the keys associated with the installed program, period. Not so today.

I believe that the bottom line here is that we simply have to concede control of installations and uninstallations. The Windows Add/Remove control panel applet will just have to suffice for the vast majority of Windows users who do not have an in depth knowledge of registry architecture and functioning.

Oh, and forget about Glary Utilities, it doesn't do anything more than the freeware version of Revo. And as for Comodo..... who knows what that program is doing during installs and uninstalls. It claims to be a real-time monitor of installations and indeed does have a dedicated service running in the background, but based upon the utility (or rather, lack thereof) of their other products, I'm not sure Comodo does anything beyond what Windows does with Add/Remove (besides placing a 500 MB file in the root dir).

 

Hey rusty...

With today's powerful PCs, to me it seems like we users should be absolutely insistent with our OS maker that there be a comprehensive uninstaller. Simply, there should be something monitoring the changes to a system made by each program, which can then simply and correctly revert the changes during uninstallation of said program(s) when it is removed. Thing is...I think Comodo and Revo Pro are fairly close.

For me, this HAS to become a science and is the crux of all the cleaning hype there has ever been. Can't even get serious about keeping a PC clean or even begin the debate as to what is a clean PC until there is a comprehensive uninstaller. This one thing must happen fully and correctly. I do believe that someone will come up with the prototype for this if OS makers can't or won't...

:major :-D

Just one thing I would like to add. Comodo Programs Manager was released around 2010 and development continued for about 2 years. Yeah, Comodo has a track record of abandoning projects, but usually the project is carried over into a more all encompassing format where multiple apps are combined or whatever. This was not the case with CPM. I would really like to know what if anything they stumbled upon that caused them to give up on the project. Was this just a situation where they had a good thing and realized they shouldn't be giving it away? If so, where is the pay version? Did they suddenly realize that the dangers associated with a user possibly removing a shared .dll (CPM does issue a pop up for EACH shared .dll giving the user a choice to keep or delete it) were too great and too potentially damaging to PC OS installations to continue the project? Was there some sort of complication during development where the developers just decided that the whole issue or some particular aspect of the project was too complicated to unravel? I mean, CPM is something Comodo could have adapted to be sold far and wide (and I believe very successfully) for businesses with just a little more development. Make the program free for home use, and they would have been heroes honestly. So, Comodo, why was the CPM project so quickly abandoned?

One more thing about this. Comodo really invested alot in the program in its short development life. Their intention was to have a database of files associated with programs on the internet that could be referenced via net connection for assistance with program removals. OK, not such a hot idea in my opinion, but the fact that Comodo experimented so heavily in the idea and then just dropped it is mysterious to me.

Another unsolved mystery from Comodo, who seems to be quiet about their decisions in spite of the high profile projects they take on and in spite of the number of fans of Comodo products there are...

 

I don't think the OS should be responsible for programmers' copying their files and making their registry entries. Every one of those deeds is intentionally typed out and performed by the app programmers, and they should be able to copy & paste those same lines into their own uninstall routines, do Search/Replace on COPY and call up DEL processes.

There are some automated caused-by-OS registry entries (like last-time-accessed, or next-time-accessed) but even then, they'll have a UsedByProgram header in there.

So I place blame for uninstallers on the folks writing each program's install routines.

That said... the OS DOES provide a service. Just not a very good one - and I don't think it's ever been very good on the majority (51% or more) of programs. I know that Windows' Add/Remove uninstaller has never completely removed MS Office installs - heck, they can't even do RemoveDir's on emptied folders!

I've stopped using some vendors' products (Symantec) because they refused to not only remove all files and reg-entries, but they left some services still running - useless consumption of a CPU's cycles. A few years later, I was heartened to see they finally offered a downloadable "Truly Uninstall Everything" file but, geez, why couldn't they do that in the first place?

Thanks for this REVO review. My question about On-Line Reference Databases remains this: "Who's supplying the on-line database entries? The various program-vendors who can't be trusted to include those entries in their own Uninstall routine? Or an indie group of Sherlocks?"