Best way to remove old programs?

[Stoigeboiii]

I've had the same windows install since 2014 and have not reinstalled windows when I upgraded and just cloned my data to an another driver. 

 

I know I committed a sin but I don't want to reinstall all the programs and make sure I had all the same files. So are they any good programs that let me easily uninstall old programs that I no longer want?

[SpaceGhostC2C]

Control Panel -> Programs and features -> Uninstall a program

[homeap5]

Your system is fine. Installed programs do not slows it down (unless they start with system). And is good that you have the same system for years - it's how it supposed to work. If everything works - just use your system.

[GoodBytes]

On 5/22/2020 at 6:32 PM, Stoigeboiii said:

I've had the same windows install since 2014 and have not reinstalled windows when I upgraded and just cloned my data to an another driver. 

 

I know I committed a sin but I don't want to reinstall all the programs and make sure I had all the same files. So are they any good programs that let me easily uninstall old programs that I no longer want?

Only applications aquired from the Store app guarantee a full removal when you uninstall it. For the rest, you rely on the software maker to put the effort in removing all traces of the application (typically, the answer: no they don't do a good job, including big software from big companies). That said, files on your drive doesn't slow down performance unless they are programs or services that runs at startup that hasn't been removed (typically, not a problem).

 

That said:

• If you are using an HDD, standard defragmentation helps keep your system performant, as data isn't split, but over time, what happens, especially if you create and delete files, do updates to programs including your OS, is that files will start to be all over the places. And so, when you load a programs, all the the files it needs to read to load the program itself are all scattered over the disk, and your HDD head needs to get it, and reduce performance, as if your drive was heavily fragmented, despite not being. This is where specialized software comes into play, and clean installs. Also, a full HDD really drops the performance as well. Best to have a nice junk of free space.
   
• As for SSDs, the more data you have, the slower they can operate (up to a certain point). The way that works and the impact, really depends on the drive. Some drops in large junks, like 50% free, 25% free, 5% free (percentage differs between drives, this is just an example). Others have a lot more levels, other less. And the performance degradation also varies. Some are not notable even near full, others a more so.
   
• If you are not vigilant with backups, a clean install of the system, forces you to do a backup of your data.

 

For programs that don't cleanly uninstall (basically, nearly all of them beside Store aquired apps), you have to do the work manually.

• Check under C:\Users\<account name>\AppData (hidden), for any files or folders related to the program you uninstalled.
• Clear Temp directory (C:\Users\<account name>\AppData\Local\Temp). Some files can't be deleted, that is fine, skip them.
• Clear System Temp directory (C:\Windows\Temp - normally, this is for Windows, and it does a good job at cleaning itself, and you have the disk cleanup utility of Windows, but some programs likes to dump their shit inside, because who reads OS documents?) Some files can't be deleted, that is fine, skip them.
• Check under C:\ProgramData (hidden)
• Check the registry (I would recommend to skip this step unless you have a proper knowledge of how the registry works, in which, if that was teh case, you would not ask the question). DO NOT use registry cleaners, unless you like not only re-installing Windows, but forced to do so at the most unexpected and worst time. The registry is a database, the more stuff on it, doesn't slow down your system.