Use Add/Remove or Norton Uninstall?

Getting ready to remove Roxio CD burning software, which I then will re-install, hoping to get rid of some problems. Should I use my Win98 Add/Remove or my Norton Uninstall--or does it make any difference?

 

Well, there are two things to consider: Add-remove is just an applet that launches the un-install executable in your program's folder. It does nothing on its own, so anything that's not written into the program's uninstaller doesn't get done. And lots of sware developers like to leave tracks that say "I was here" on your drive in the registry or in the system folders. If you have some good registry-cleaning sware, like RegCleaner, jv16's reg cleaner application, and/or RegScrubXP, those will prolly take care of the registry entries that the program's uninstaller leaves behind. But any file created by the program after the install won't be part of the program's uninstaller routine, so you still have to look in the program's old folder (if it's still there) to see what leftovers you have.

But Norton's program is designed to do the whole shooting match: it's supposed to scour the reg for tracks, and hunt down dlls that the program installed and nothing else uses, dlls that Add-remove (usually) won't touch, and look everywhere for things associated with the installation of the program you're removing. That's why NU takes so much longer than A-R. But with this there can be a price: if NU works as it's supposed to, all's well, but if it takes out a dll (for example) that was put there by the doomed program's installer, but that is used by another program you've installed since you installed the doomed program (the other program would have installed its own copy, but it found one already there, so it skipped that step), you're going to get error messages when you try to use anything that depends on the removed file.

Okay, so. One method of uninstalling may be inadequate for complete removal, but may do the job just right. The other method may do too effective a job, and strip something you want left behind, but it may do the job just right.

If you do a Google on Norton Uninstaller, you'll find some horror stories. If you hunt for horror stories associated with XP Add-Remove, you won't find any (or, at least, I haven't). Everybody expects Add-Remove to do what it does and no more: it uses the program's own uninstaller -- or sometimes a generic uninstaller you'll find in Windows, like llatsni.exe (that's install backwards, in case you ... never mind) or unin.exe or some such -- and if it errs, it errs on the side of leaving things behind. NU, OTOH, is supposed to be aggressive, and that means that if it errs, you might lose something you wish you hadn't.

Bottom line: If you have good backups and images, NU is the better choice for many users. If not, use Add-Remove, or just go to the program's folder and use uninstall.exe and cut out the middleman. Then use your reg cleaner(s) to get rid of the tracks. There's not much chance that what Norton kills will hurt you, but there's not much chance that what Add-Remove leaves behind will hurt you, either.

Sorry that was so long!