Apparent problem with Revo Uninstaller

[ChrisJakarta]

OpenOffice v3.3 has just been announced, and I planned to upgrade. But as is my wont, I decided to uninstall v3.2 first, to allow Revo to clean up the mess that was likely to be left around.

Revo v1.91 did its thing of looking for remaining registry items. Normally in my experience, it finds perhaps a maximum of 100 or so. In this case, the counter climbed above 20,000 and still climbing. At that stage, I took fright and canceled.

I can't believe that OpenOffice really uses more than 20,000 registry entries, and I feel sure that had I allowed it to delete all the ones it was finding, it would have been a disaster.

After a reboot, and before installing OpenOffice v3.3, I ran the Registry Cleaner in the latest version of CCleaner. This only found the usual small number of loose ends.

Not sure where Revo was going, but this has caused me somewhat to lose faith in it...

Chris

[Bigaldoc]

You might want to read this: LibreOffice 3.3

If you do a bit of Googling you'll find that there are some "tremors" of trouble in the OpenOffice ranks.

[ChrisJakarta]

Al,

Thanks for that - although I'm not sure how it assists in fully uninstalling OpenOffice. In fact, if I decide to use LibreOffice instead, it makes the full removal even more important.

My report earlier was based on my experience with a laptop. I've just tried uninstalling OpenOffice v3.2 from my desktop with Revo Uninstaller v1.91 - with the same results. I let Revo run to the end of its checking; it found 27,532 leftover registry items and 45,238 leftover files and folders, including what appeared to be all my installed programs. Naturally I did not allow it to remove either!

Sadly this experience has totally destroyed my confidence in Revo - I won't trust it to remove anything in future. Anyone any idea for a trustworthy uninstaller?

Chris

[HansV]

I know that Revo Uninstaller is popular with many Loungers, but as with registry cleaners, I'm not convinced that uninstaller utilities are a good idea in general. It's quite difficult to determine which files and registry entries can be removed beyond those specified by the application's own uninstaller. There are usually some obvious candidates that can be removed safely, but I'm wary of advanced/aggressive removal.

[PaulB]

An other observation: With the release of CCleaner 3.03, I decided to use Revo to uninstall version 3.02 only to find that Revo does not include CCleaner in its list of programs. Will have to check to see if others are missing.

[Hey Jude]

An other observation: With the release of CCleaner 3.03, I decided to use Revo to uninstall version 3.02 only to find that Revo does not include CCleaner in its list of programs

I'm going to check this out and discover on my laptop CCleaner IS included

CCleaner in Revo.jpg

I wonder what that is about?

[tedshemyers]

My Revo uninstaller Pro also shows CCleaner as an installed / removable program.

Chris, Is your PC a 32 Bit or 64 Bit OS, and is your copy of Open Office 32 Bit or 64 Bit? The free version of Revo uninstaller is for 32 Bit only. You could try the free trial of Revo Uninstaller Pro to get 64 Bit capability.

Absolute Uninstallerhas been mentioned in these forums as a good alternative. Works on both bitness versions of files.

[viking33]

My Revo uninstaller Pro also shows CCleaner as an installed / removable program.

Chris, Is your PC a 32 Bit or 64 Bit OS, and is your copy of Open Office 32 Bit or 64 Bit? The free version of Revo uninstaller is for 32 Bit only. You could try the free trial of Revo Uninstaller Pro to get 64 Bit capability.

Absolute Uninstallerhas been mentioned in these forums as a good alternative. Works on both bitness versions of files.

Seems you are right about the 32 vs. 64 bit OSs.
On my Win7 64 bit, CCleaner doesn't show but switching over to my Win XP 32 bit partition, it does show up in Revo. ( using the free version in both )

[JoeP]

Are you using the portable version on the Win7 side?

Joe

[viking33]

Are you using the portable version on the Win7 side?

Joe

Joe,
Was that question for me or for Chris? or ?
If me, I'm not using the portable version.

[JoeP]

Was that question for me or for Chris? or ?
If me, I'm not using the portable version.

It was for you. If you were using the portable version it would not need to be installed you can just run it.

Joe

[viking33]

Was that question for me or for Chris? or ?
If me, I'm not using the portable version.

It was for you. If you were using the portable version it would not need to be installed you can just run it.

Joe

And the advantage is?
If it would just show CCleaner on the 64 bit version of Win 7, then it's a "yawner" for me anyway.
I was just agreeing with Ted that the difference seemed to be 64 bit vs. 32 bit versions.

[tedshemyers]

One of the shortfalls of Revo Uninstaller free version is that it only works on 32 Bit appss. Does not see 64 Bit apps. You have to have the Pro version (free trial available). Absolute Uninstaller works with both 32 Bit and 64 Bit.

[JoeP]

Was that question for me or for Chris? or ?
If me, I'm not using the portable version.

It was for you. If you were using the portable version it would not need to be installed you can just run it.

Joe

And the advantage is?

When there is a new version of Ccleaner you can just download it, unzip it, and run it. No install needed. Or you can put it on a flash drive as part of a repair tool kit.

Joe

[Bigaldoc]

One of the shortfalls of Revo Uninstaller free version is that it only works on 32 Bit appss. Does not see 64 Bit apps. You have to have the Pro version (free trial available). Absolute Uninstaller works with both 32 Bit and 64 Bit.

Be nice if you included a link, Ted. Is this it: Absolute Uninstaller
Apologies Ted. I missed your earlier post where you DID post a link! Sorry...

[ChrisJakarta]

Chris, Is your PC a 32 Bit or 64 Bit OS, and is your copy of Open Office 32 Bit or 64 Bit? The free version of Revo uninstaller is for 32 Bit only. You could try the free trial of Revo Uninstaller Pro to get 64 Bit capability.

From what you are saying, it seems that the answer to the first part must be clear: 32 bit (since you tell me if it was 64bit, it wouldn't work at all!) And thus the OpenOffice is (was) 32 bit...

Absolute Uninstallerhas been mentioned in these forums as a good alternative. Works on both bitness versions of files.

Thanks. I'll take a look at this.

Chris

[PaulB]

One of the shortfalls of Revo Uninstaller free version is that it only works on 32 Bit appss. Does not see 64 Bit apps. You have to have the Pro version (free trial available). Absolute Uninstaller works with both 32 Bit and 64 Bit.

You're probably right in this regard. I have at least one other 64 bit app that does not show up in the Revo list. Makes it hard to explain, though, how CCleaner shows up as (maybe) both a 32 and a 64 bit app in the 32 bit Program Files directory.

CCleaner.PNG

Edited to add: No 'maybe' about it... Secunia PSI shows two versions of CCleaner. One is the 32 bit version, the other 64 bit.

Capture.PNG

[ChrisGreaves]

It's quite difficult to determine which files and registry entries can be removed beyond those specified by the application's own uninstaller.

Good point.
RevoUninstaller is my weapon-of-choice, but this morning I discovered that it doesn't completely eliminate "ClickYesPro2010Setup", or more correctly, it leaves behind a signal to ClickYesPro2010Setup that ClickYesPro2010Setup has been previously installed on my Win7/64 system.

I daresay one could build a benchmark test to see which of the popular uninstallers fell down on the job, and which were more efficient on a cross-section of popular software.
The obvious choices of software to be de-installed are those with a trial period of 30 days