Uninstall Games Completely

[Guest]

Hello.

I installed a couple of games on my computer: A older game called
"Dogfighter" and a recent game called "Space Rangers 2". (As you can see from
my choice of games, I am not what one would call a really hard core gamer, so
I do not have much experience with these apps.)

My question is that, when I uninstall them, either with the Control Panel or
with the original game CD, and then reinstall them a few days later, I still
have old saved games on my computer. This tells me that something is not
being deleted during the uninstallation process.

How can I completely wipe out all of the games' directories and files from
my computer?

After I uninstall a game its directory is not in the Crograms directory
anymore. Are there hidden files on my computer somewhere after the unintall?


K_Drive

 

[Hans Meiser]

Hi K_Drive,

there are no hidden files on your PC.

Many programs (games as well) store user related data (e.g. save games) in
the users "Personal files" folders (I'm from Germany so I don't know the
correct english naming).

Many games don't delete these files (some ask you if they should) to allow
you to keep your save games for future use. If you want to get rid of them
all you can do is search for obvious folders under your personal files and
delete them manually.

With best regards

MW

 

[Jimmy S.]

Hi Hans Meiser,

The personal files folder is named My Documents in the
English versions of Windows.

--
Cheers, *Windows_XP_MVP_Shell/User*
Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

Visit my MSN Games and Windows Gaming Help Site: www.msce.mvps.org
MS Games Help and Support Center: http://support.microsoft.com/?pr=gms
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
_________________________________________________________

Hans Meiser Wrote:
=================
| Hi K_Drive,
|
| there are no hidden files on your PC.
|
| Many programs (games as well) store user related data (e.g. save games) in
| the users "Personal files" folders (I'm from Germany so I don't know the
| correct english naming).
|
| Many games don't delete these files (some ask you if they should) to allow
| you to keep your save games for future use. If you want to get rid of them
| all you can do is search for obvious folders under your personal files and
| delete them manually.
|
| With best regards
|
| MW
|
| || Hello.
||
|| I installed a couple of games on my computer: A older game called
|| "Dogfighter" and a recent game called "Space Rangers 2". (As you can see
|| from
|| my choice of games, I am not what one would call a really hard core gamer,
|| so
|| I do not have much experience with these apps.)
||
|| My question is that, when I uninstall them, either with the Control Panel
|| or
|| with the original game CD, and then reinstall them a few days later, I
|| still
|| have old saved games on my computer. This tells me that something is not
|| being deleted during the uninstallation process.
||
|| How can I completely wipe out all of the games' directories and files from
|| my computer?
||
|| After I uninstall a game its directory is not in the Crograms directory
|| anymore. Are there hidden files on my computer somewhere after the
|| unintall?
||
||
|| K_Drive

 

[Guest]

Hans:

Thank you very much for your reply.
I will look into this.

Sincerely,

Ken Andrews
K_Drive

 

[Andy [YaYa]]

Hello.

I installed a couple of games on my computer: A older game called
"Dogfighter" and a recent game called "Space Rangers 2". (As you can see
from
my choice of games, I am not what one would call a really hard core gamer,
so
I do not have much experience with these apps.)

My question is that, when I uninstall them, either with the Control Panel
or
with the original game CD, and then reinstall them a few days later, I
still
have old saved games on my computer. This tells me that something is not
being deleted during the uninstallation process.

How can I completely wipe out all of the games' directories and files from
my computer?

After I uninstall a game its directory is not in the Crograms directory
anymore. Are there hidden files on my computer somewhere after the
unintall?

I'm sure it's already been said, but here's what I say.

OK you install a game, great it's installed on your system and the installer
writes a list of what was installed/changed to your system.

You play the game...

You make some save game files...

....installer log isn't updated.

You want to uninstall the game, the uninstaller looks at the log and simply
reverses what was done during install.

The uninstaller doesn't know about the save game files and leaves them.

This is actually "Best Practices" when it comes to Windows applications,
Save files and personal user data usually isn't removed unless the
uninstaller has a special script to find save files and remove them, and
even then the uninstaller, before it removes personal user data, SHOULD ask,
"is it ok to remove your save game files as well?".

It's nice when the application does this, but I've run into uninstallers
that actually remove your save games WITHOUT telling you.

Really sucks if you want to come back to the game down the line and your
save files were wiped.

I dunno, I like to keep my save files on my hard drive, never know when I
might want to go back to a game. When I do backups I make sure to backup my
save games folder. Pre-Vista that folder didn't exist, so unfortunatly you
usually get games saving data in My Documents, sometimes in your User
Folder/Documents, in "AppData", etc. etc. etc.

Windows Vista has a saved games folder now, and when you do a "Games for
Windows" game you have to save into that folder, so GOOD NEWS, it'll get
easier, but for quirky games or games that don't follow Microsoft's "Best
Practices" for games in Windows, well you're just gonna have to live with
this bologna for now.

Summary: I'd rather have the uninstaller just remove the program files, in
game testing I can't count how many times we were testing the uninstaller,
and thanks to someone forgetting a "\" or a quote in the uninstaller, it
would simply delete everything on the C: drive. Fortunatly test systems
don't have family photos on them.

-A.

 

[Dean O'Connell]

If you are using vista the path would look something like this C:\users\your
logon name\

Dean

 

[Guest]

Andy:

Thanks for the reply.
All intelligent posts/thoughts/suggestions are welcome.

I also posted this at w3schools.com. A couple of people suggested that this
might have something to do with the Registry, but I do not think so. I don't
know much about the Registry, but I think it is just a path for your computer
to tell it what applications are installed in it.

That brings me to my next question: Do you know anything about the Registry
or know of any good websites that explain it? I don't plan on messing with
mine, but it would be nice to learn about it.

K_Drive

 

[Andy [YaYa]]

I'm touched, sorry I've been away for a bit...

Umm, Registry is a "snarky devil", I honestly only know as much as I need to
know about it.

I basically know that if the registry is messed up/deleted you might as well
reinstall Windows. It's kind of like the Spinal Cord of Windows, if you
delete it the rest of the parts might be there, but your brian can't
controll them. Eww.

As for places to learn more. You might want to start with Google. Try
searching for Windows Registry, What is it?, check Wikipedia.com and see if
someone's written a nice entry with links.

Worse case scenario, go to msdn.microsoft.com and poke around, but this site
is highly technical. Might not be easy to find the answers you're looking
for.

If you need further assistance you can email me... well i'm nervous about
posting my actual address, try the one attached to this email, that might be
re-directed, but if you need to reach me respond here and i'll figure out
something.

-A.