Do You Uninstall Or Leave Old Unused Software On Your Pc?

I am definitely of the Lean & Mean NON-Packrat thinking / mentality / operational mode. Any Apps for which I have no use, out they must go. In fact, whenever possible, I prefer to use Portable Apps from my Flash Drive instead of having the Installer versions in my HD.

I only have 25 icons on my Desktop and that's including the Recycle Bin, the My Computer icon and some "780 BIOS changes" icon. Since I use PDF-XChange Viewer, I would normally get rid of Adobe Reader, but I use this BOSS Fonts App that needs Adobe Reader in order to work. So I reluctantly have the ancient Acrobat Reader 4.0 that gets installed with that App.

 

I usually test a ton of useless programs. They tend to leave droppings all over the place even when uninstalled.
CCCleaner gets most of it, but eventually I reinstall Windows and am always amazed how much faster my computer is.

 

I usually have disk space to burn so I just leave them until there is so much crap that I can't bear it any more so then I will do some heavy duty house cleaning or go back to an early restore point (I store my data elsewhere) and start all over again.

@Chim 25 icons on your desktop that's quite tidy....... hmmm..... I just counted mine and on one pc there is 97 and on the other there is 128 but there is also a folder on that desktop with another 60 games icons
I don't know whether to be ashamed or proud
In my defence I do have a 42" monitor with a KVM and even with all this clutter, it still doesn't look too bad

On the other hand my 2 X HTPC (in different rooms) only have 4 icons on each desktop. The icons are:- recycle bin, computer, user files and Kodi but in reality it only ever runs Kodi unless there is some problem

 

Only 17 icons on my desktop, I can't stand a cluttered one. I tend to install programs and leave them on unless I am low on drive space.

 

My program/features add-remove has 329 items. And that doesn't count portable items. I do some cleaning of unwanted items every so often. Oh yeah - MajorGeeks contributed nicely to this collection!

 

What I don't use, I uninstall. I have the setup files backed up to DVDs.

 

ZOITS! A 42" monitor? That's not a monitor. That's a small theater screen. I have one of those unorthodox, tallish 1280 x 1024 monitors. It fits 13 icons per column. I do my best to keep the situation at 2 columns.

In reference to plodr alluding to how in the past, hard drives were very small and so you had to learn to keep the clutter in check --- 3 computers ago, I had a small HP Pavilion with only a 10 Gig HD and with Windows XP at that. I definitely learned and got in the habit of getting rid of every frickin' atom of unnecessary stuff with that computer. That was also when I got in the habit of always having a Flash Drive plugged in and saving everything to it and not to my hard drive.

Anyway ... the way I see it, getting rid of anything and everything that you don't need makes for shorter, quicker scans with your anti-virus, MBAM, SAS and whatever other Apps of that nature. Likewise, shorter, quicker defragging sessions.

 

Heck, I run a 50" Samsung. Picked it up for a song on clearance.

I'm the type who hates clutter, especially at startup. Anything that does get uninstalled gets Revo, and CCleaner thrown at it post removal. Anything that doesn't need to run at startup or in the background is disabled until the app is in use.

 

This, except I use the Iobit Uninstaller.

MGs gave me a one-year license for Advanced System Care on a Facebook give-away a couple of years ago. I put it on The Guy's gaming PC since that is our main one, and put the free version of ASC on the back-up PC I use when he is gaming (and vice versa). He liked having the full version so much that when they sent him an email about a generous discount on a family license that covered ASC and almost every module listed in their toolbox, he bought it. Have to say, I really enjoy having all those tools readily available.

 

Also, our main gaming tower is connected to a 65" HDTV that serves as the monitor.

I win.

Stupid missing Edit button...

 

Hmmm .... my main HTPC also has xbox, PS2, Nintendo and some really old pc games all loaded via Kodi and they are played with a wireless xbox controller and displayed on a 72" LG 4k ultra HD smart screen.
Sorry

 

Model number? We're in the process of researching alternatives...

 

Hey Mimsy, it's an LG UH656T 75" 4K Ultra HD 200Hz Smart LED TV and it is very nice and so far been trouble free.
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/tv-home-e...75-4k-ultra-hd-200hz-smart-led-lcd-tv/948968/

I am now considering another LG for the other home theatre (more a TV room) an LG 70UH635T 70" 4K UHD HDR Smart LED TV currently it has the old 65" Hi Sense HDTV which is total crap and was replaced under warranty and still has been nothing but trouble
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/tv-home-e...uh635t-70-4k-uhd-hdr-smart-led-lcd-tv/949274/

The only other contender that really came close when we were looking was the UHD Samsung but my mate who is the manager at JB Hi Fi said that a couple of the Samsungs had come back and it might be better to wait for the "improved" model due in another three months. Because you can't rely on the store system to be setup the same I made them plug in a 4k bluray player and grabbed a movie and we moved that same bluray player and movie to each of the smart TVs that we were interested in and surprisingly there was more of a difference than I expected. All TVs were set to default setup so it was an even playing field and the LG looked the best. The brands we compared at JB Hi Fi were:- LG, Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Teac, Soniq and we didn't even look at the Hi Sense as I would never have another one.
My pockets weren't deep enough for an OLED display of this size so we will have to be satisfied with LED for now
Hope this helps and have fun looking
joffa

 

Well, I don't think my desktop was too bad when it was working, but the hardware went kaboom so i'm in the process of building another one. I was pretty good about uninstalling unused software, still bet I could have benefited from something like CCleaner though.

Tell me more about using a TV screen as your main monitor. Are the resolutions worth it? Seems like they wouldn't be as nice as a regular computer monitor.

 

My 42" screen is a Sharp Aquos HD LED TV and it looks great. I sit fairly close and have no trouble reading text, any pictures display sharp and clear, and if I am playing games the screen is plenty fast enough with no smearing.
I connect via HDMI and one pc has a Gigabyte GTX 760 gfx card and the other has an Asus GTX 780 ti gfx card. Both of these cards are easily up to the job.
Screen resolution I am currently running is 1842 X 1036 @ 60Hz and although I can run at a higher resolution, this one fits the screen edge to edge perfectly and circles are still perfectly round. If I were to run a higher resolution I need to tweak the screen settings slightly and this alters the way squares and circles appear and it seems to change the perspective in some pictures slightly.

At tax time next year the Aquos will be 5 years old and there is no more depreciation for tax deductions so it will be written off and I will upgrade to a 42" 4K UHD something.

 

Yes, absolutely. The superiority of PC gaming is never more obvious than on a large HDTV capable of acting as a computer monitor.

For other use, that requires posting or reading lots of text, the CTRL - + command was invented for those situations.

 

I also have the Samsung 74" 4K TV, but gaming on it is just no where as good as the Samsung 32" freesync. I do play WoW sometimes on the big screen or when I want to show friends something in a game, but the limited FPS of the TV limits its fun.
No one else cares about the settings and files left behind by uninstalled programs? IObit does not get them all, will need to check out Revo.

 

Mimsy, I just wish I could talk SHEWHOMUSTBEOBEYED into getting a 2nd puter for everyday use so I could do the gaming bit on my 32" Specter (HDMI hookup) without having to cede computer control to herself frequently or jump out of a game to surf for her. Love your idea of a huge screen. Wish I had room for one in my study. Picked up the Spectre for a song at WalMart.

 

i keep ALL of my old installer, i buy 2.5 sata cases and salvage old hdd's for storage purposes. sometimes programs worked better when they where still simple, like version 1.6.2 versus 2.0. i keep both installers but i much prefer the older one. also my nethacks and angbands. lots of fun to go back and play different versions of the game with different content. i am a packrat, but my workhorse computers take minimal crap installed, and almost nothing on startup.

 

imaging is fun, i wipe drives on the daily kids. daily. no i dont have much beyond stock, and im huntin drivers.... what did you do last weekend?