Removing unwanted software

[Jo-Frank]

First, the background info. I got the worm and my system
crashed. I had to replace my operating system I haxe XP
pro. I had to reinstall all the software, etc. I installed
several software titles and my system was slow. I thought I
should use system restore to get rid of programs that I was
not using. Apparently, while the titles are no longer in my
start menu, they are still somewhere in my computer. When I
scann my system with Norton Anti-virus I see that it is
scanning these program titles that are not appearing in my
start menu. I would like to find these programs and remove
them. They are not in my add/remove program list, either.
What should I do?

 

[Guest]

If you reinstalled XP then you didn't do a clean install. While installing you should have chosen to format your partition. You may no longer have access to these orphaned programs and their registry keys. One of the most thorough ways of cleaning unwanted programs from your computer is to use the registry editor. Go>start\run and type in regedit now click edit on the tool bar at the top then find and type in the name of the program you don't want and click find. If it is a subkey on the right then right click and click delete. If it is a key on the left then right click there and click delete. Be sure that the key or subkey is the one containing the info about the program you want deleted as the registry is the heart of your OS then a mistake could cause some serious side effects. You will then need to hit F3 to get the next entry or edit\find next. Good luck.

 

[Steve C. Ray]

System Restore affects system files only, not applications that you have
installed. The best way to remove these programs is reinstall them, then use
Add/Remove Programs to remove them.