Alternatives to formatting HD and reinstalling Vista

[Ignoramus]

I have a Vista Premium PC where I installed a trial version of a program,
let it expire and now I bought the full version but cannot seem to get it to
install since the ghost of the old trial version seems to be haunting my PC.

Before I start formatting the drive (and lose all my other programs and
settings) and attempt to reinstall Vista, I was wondering whether there was
some easy way to wipe all traces of the trial program? I am no great tech
expert, so protracted brain surgery with registry settings may not be an
option for me!

 

[Gordon]

I have a Vista Premium PC where I installed a trial version of a program,
let it expire and now I bought the full version but cannot seem to get it
to install since the ghost of the old trial version seems to be haunting my
PC.

Before I start formatting the drive (and lose all my other programs and
settings) and attempt to reinstall Vista, I was wondering whether there
was some easy way to wipe all traces of the trial program? I am no great
tech expert, so protracted brain surgery with registry settings may not be
an option for me!

And what application might this be?

 

[Adam Albright]

I have a Vista Premium PC where I installed a trial version of a program,
let it expire and now I bought the full version but cannot seem to get it to
install since the ghost of the old trial version seems to be haunting my PC.

Before I start formatting the drive (and lose all my other programs and
settings) and attempt to reinstall Vista, I was wondering whether there was
some easy way to wipe all traces of the trial program? I am no great tech
expert, so protracted brain surgery with registry settings may not be an
option for me!

Have you tried to locate the trial version in Control Panel (Programs
& Features) and then delete it from there?

Also you can go to C:\Program Files, expand that folder and look for
the sub folder that's the home of this application. Often there is a
delete application there that should remove it or just try Renaming
the folder. If you couldn't delete it from Control Panel simply
renaming the folder it resides in is often enough to prevent it from
starting up or any new version finding it. Once you know it no longer
runs you can delete this folder.

As far as messing with the Registry, if you're not comfortable, don't.
Always backup the Registry FIRST if you decide to try. Generally you
can type REGEDIT at the start button, click on the link that comes up,
then Edit then Find then type what you're looking for and just walk
down the list using 'Find Next' until you get to the end of searching
the Registry. You can determine what to "find" by looking the program
folder and manually searching for any .exe file.

 

[measekite]

Try this.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

It's a great little app that we use to cleanup left over installs when
we can't get a program to reinstall.
Frank

We do not have left over installs in Linux.