WinUAE exposing how crappy Windows is

[Amiduffer]

I was using diskmaster with WinUAE last night on my Win7 Toshiba Satellite, and just for kicks, I started to poke around DH4: which is your windows "partition". Disturbingly, I started to run across programs and demos that I thought I had erased a while ago. 8( WTH! Are you telling me, that this "modern" operating system, and I use that term loosely, if you tell it to un-install a program, that it leaves all sorts of leftover crap?

I know that nothing ever gets really and truly "erased" from a harddrive without it physically being destroyed, but, this is rediculous! Geez. If I didn't need this digitizing program, I would have happily ditched Windows.

[som99]

I was using diskmaster with WinUAE last night on my Win7 Toshiba Satellite, and just for kicks, I started to poke around DH4: which is your windows "partition". Disturbingly, I started to run across programs and demos that I thought I had erased a while ago. 8( WTH! Are you telling me, that this "modern" operating system, and I use that term loosely, if you tell it to un-install a program, that it leaves all sorts of leftover crap?

I know that nothing ever gets really and truly "erased" from a harddrive without it physically being destroyed, but, this is rediculous! Geez. If I didn't need this digitizing program, I would have happily ditched Windows.

Quite old new there, as I understood your post all files from a regular uninstallation aint gone right? You can see quite alot of junk in your windows registry, now I got no clue what kind of files you where talking about tho, but run a quicky in regedit and youll find quite alot of junk.

Pease tell me what "programs and demos" as you called it you found, random roaming files? Old save folder? or did you just plain find it in the wTemp folder? Tell me more, since I got no clue what your definition is

Edit: A tip that I use is to allways run a registry reader when installing new apps/games and save the output, read trough it and when uninstalling something write a quicky that removes everything from the log associated with the installed application. That's atleast a good way to keep your register clean

[DavidF215]

Actually that's probably not the OS. If the OEM or the software company did not write their script correctly, then the software could be left on the computer.

[amigakid]

uhhmm how did you erase them?  Most programs do leave "trace" files and do not actually totally erase everything, depends on the uninstaller you use.  There are also temp files, save files, registry keys ect...  This is not a fault of Windows, but of sloppy programming by makers of software.

[Trev]

And you'll often find that well-written installers do not remove files added or modified after the installation, e.g. configuration files and user data.

[zipper]

Probably always some traces are left - at least a dedicated uninstall software seems to clean rests always after the original uninstaller has finished.

[AmigaHeretic]

I was using diskmaster with WinUAE last night on my Win7 Toshiba Satellite, and just for kicks, I started to poke around DH4: which is your windows "partition". Disturbingly, I started to run across programs and demos that I thought I had erased a while ago. 8( WTH! Are you telling me, that this "modern" operating system, and I use that term loosely, if you tell it to un-install a program, that it leaves all sorts of leftover crap?

I know that nothing ever gets really and truly "erased" from a harddrive without it physically being destroyed, but, this is rediculous! Geez. If I didn't need this digitizing program, I would have happily ditched Windows.

Yeah, a lot of stuff doesn't get uninstalled.  Usually you have files and folders left behind and settings still there.  Not to mention the registry which is a whole nother game.

If you go to C:\Program Files\  you will usually find left over folders of long gone programs.

The other one is C:\Program Files\Common Files folder.  Look in there and search around in the shared folders in there and you will find stuff probably from old programs (Norton will have like 5 even after it is uninstalled.)

C:\Documents and Settings\...  (C:\Users\.... in Win7)   and the tons of folders in there (it's just a damn maze) there will be tons of stuff in there.   Check adobe folders I have found a single 1GB left over file in the Adobe Reader folder in many systems.  If you check the folder sizes and work your way down you will find huge amounts of garbage.  


Then there are other places things are left behind like,
C:\Windows\
C:\Windows\System32\
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\

It hard to know what is left over and can be deleted in these folders though.  Norton programs for example leave tons of stuff in those folders as well.  Most of them start with Sym or you can right click on each file and it will tell you if it is a Symantec file.  You can delete these.  

It's pretty ridiculous that all that crap is left behind.  That's why these days I try to find "Portable Apps" of software I have purchased.  They work like Amiga programs.  Just run everything out of a single folder.

Then you can reformat and reinstall Windows when you need and you don't have to reinstall all your Apps.

[lsmart]

This is not a fault of Windows, but of sloppy programming by makers of software.

Well, Windows really encourages such sloppyness. A simple Amiga programm doesn´t need an install process at all. Most of the time all installers-scripts really do is to make an assign. Windows is a cluttered os where nothing seems to have its proper place. Its hard to manage and most people end up just ignoring all the crap.

That being said - there is good software on Windows. WinUAE is the most sophisticated inranation of the Emulator ever. The performance of WinUAE on decent hardware is more than tolerable.

[Arkhan]

Well, Windows really encourages such sloppyness. A simple Amiga programm doesn´t need an install process at all. Most of the time all installers-scripts really do is to make an assign. Windows is a cluttered os where nothing seems to have its proper place. Its hard to manage and most people end up just ignoring all the crap.

Windows encourages third party software companies to make sloppy nonsense?  Thats news.

It's not hard to manage either.  One day that myth might finally go away.

Also, a "simple" Amiga program defeats the purpose of argument here.  Not to mention, getting things to work on Amiga isn't always a walk in the park.

[Framiga]

I was using diskmaster with WinUAE last night on my Win7 Toshiba Satellite, and just for kicks, I started to poke around DH4: which is your windows "partition". Disturbingly, I started to run across programs and demos that I thought I had erased a while ago. 8( WTH! Are you telling me, that this "modern" operating system, and I use that term loosely, if you tell it to un-install a program, that it leaves all sorts of leftover crap?

I know that nothing ever gets really and truly "erased" from a harddrive without it physically being destroyed, but, this is rediculous! Geez. If I didn't need this digitizing program, I would have happily ditched Windows.

do a search for "CCleaner" with google ... learn how to use it and your system will thank  you! :-)

[mpiva]

Also, a "simple" Amiga program defeats the purpose of argument here.  Not to mention, getting things to work on Amiga isn't always a walk in the park.

I disagree.  Most "simple" Amiga program work straight from where you unarchive them.  I've found very few "simple" Windows programs that don't require you to "install" them.  That's one of the things I LOVE about the Amiga.  If I want to try out a program, I can usually unarchive it RAM: and run it.  If I don't like it, the next time I boot my computer it won't be there, none of it, no left over junk.

 Not to mention, getting things to work on Amiga isn't always a walk in the park.

True.  I've have install scripts fail on me on the Amiga.  But if a Windows install fails on you, you're pretty much screwed.  If an Amiga install fails, it's a LOT easier to figure out how to install it manually. (Especially with tools like SnoopDOS that let you see where programs are trying to find files)

[runequester]

bonus points when installing something f's up your registry or mangles some required dll.

Installing an application should never be able to compromise the core system files, ever.

[jd997uk]

http://www.revouninstaller.com/ is a godsend to me. The Pro version can create a script that records an install to be able to thoroughly remove registry settings.
The standard version is still miles better than the std uninstaller and really should be on everyones PC.
You'd (probably not) be amazed how much info is stored in the ProgramData folder, rather than in the Program Files folder.

[Amiduffer]

do a search for "CCleaner" with google ... learn how to use it and your system will thank  you! :-)

Well. Come back the next morning and see that you've hit a sore spot with others. ^~^ Oh the stories! Makes me appreciate the simplicity of installing something on Amiga. Put this file in C:, put that file in Libs:, put that file where-ever you want, put this line in user-startup.

A recent horror story is Ad-aware going to hell in a handbasket, and then the uninstall failing, and then Windows telling me that I can't erase the folder because certain files are connected to other files 'somewhere else'. Don't get me started on how much time I had to waste cleaning Norton out the system. The demo was the Aquaria demo. After finishing it, I ran the uninstall, but, there's still a folder with some random files left behind. Granted, its a few guys doing the programing, so perhaps you might get some sloppiness in housecleaning.

[psxphill]

I disagree. Most "simple" Amiga program work straight from where you unarchive them. I've found very few "simple" Windows programs that don't require you to "install" them. That's one of the things I LOVE about the Amiga. If I want to try out a program, I can usually unarchive it RAM: and run it. If I don't like it, the next time I boot my computer it won't be there, none of it, no left over junk.
 
 True. I've have install scripts fail on me on the Amiga. But if a Windows install fails on you, you're pretty much screwed. If an Amiga install fails, it's a LOT easier to figure out how to install it manually. (Especially with tools like SnoopDOS that let you see where programs are trying to find files)

RAM: is good, I use(d) it for the exact same thing.
 
Windows gets more crappy apps than the Amiga, but thats more down to popularity.
 
Windows isn't that hard to tidy up, it's just something new to learn.