Why do Programs Leave JUNK Behind?? 

My OCD won't rest until I have hunted down and deleted every single file or registry key from an unistalled program.

I can't remember what game it was, but I had one on Steam that left basically everything when it uninstalled.

Someone: Deletes shortcut and thinks they uninstalled the *whole* program

"Because if it removes them, it might break other softwares" Oh god, only if we had somekind of solution to dependency management.. Like imagine if there would be a solution, which would track those dependencies, and install and remove them as needed..

Linus: "When was the last time you played yard work simulator 2004 anyway" Last night since they added ray tracing....I'm on level 43

"friends at Microsoft..." "uninstall Mozilla...." 🤣🤣🤣

1:50 oh god,i remember going through the process of reinstalling directX EVERY SINGLE TIME

30-day trial was over. Uninstalled and reinstalled the program. "Your trial has expired. Please register the product." "I knew you sneakily left something in my PC without my permission!!!"

Basically keeping registerey intry prevents from using the free trial more than once :)

I find it more bothering that almost every program these days adds services that start when windows boots up. Do i need the telemetry that half of the times comes with those services ?

Remnants of McAfee can still keep other antiviruses from installing. So always use the optional removal tool if it's forced onto your pc

Back in the old days of Windows 95, there was a program called Cleansweep 95. It detected that you want to install a game or program and everything was stored in Cleansweep 95. Every file, exe and even the registry was stored. Whenever you wanted to uninstall a program or game, you did it through Cleansweep 95, which opened the stored information to safely remove everything the program or game installed on your machine. When the icon next to the file was green, it was safe, if it was red, it was a dangerous file that could potentially harm your pc and when the icon was blue, that specific file was also used my another program. Since than, numerous companies has made their own so called "safe uninstaller", that logged everything, to "restore" your machine back before you installed the program or game. I still remember this because my first computer had Windows 95 installed when I became 18 years old. I do love the days that I played games on my dad's TRS-80 pc made by Tandy Corporation...

Developers just write codes in bunches and once they see it's functional, they just leave it there. This it the main cause for residual files and interface inconsistencies. Why else do you think windows 10 interface is such a mishmash??

My “Friend” at Microsoft that doesn’t allow me to activate windows multiple times :)

Program: “Gonna delete me? “Good Luck”

Program: you can't uninstall me. Me: hold my 'open file location' button

On 95/98 you could create an entirely new registry by importing a small text file that contained the main branch top level names. It was basically a quick way to reinstall Windows without actually having to reinstall.

That's why us Linux users use package managers. You don't have to rely on the software developer to make a decent uninstall script, rather your package manager manages the install and uninstall process for you. Plus, you can specify if you don't want to keep your configuration files.

When I uninstall a program i usually manually search for leftover folders and delete the leftover registry keys

I remember growing up and on windows 95 constantly getting "these files don't appear to be in use anymore, would you like to remove them?" when uninstalling shareware games. Needless to say, i learned real quick not to say yes.

I was hoping that they would mention the modern AppX packaging format as a way of showing how things could and should be done going forward. AppX packaging means basically everything is stored in a application container, so when uninstalling Windows can just remove the container and everything is gone. By nature of this approach it also means apps tend to be more sandboxed and so keeping the system more secure.

Don't forget to mention that when your trying to uninstall software that fails because it can't find the files to uninstall. There is a lot of times you may have to manually go to revo or thunderbolt to get rid of that left over regerestry because if you don't the software won't install the same program..

im going to design a collar that detects "speaking of", and shocks EVERY staff member of LMG.

Autodesk leaves so much behind, it's nearly impossible to rid of everything from them.

A good example of an uninstaller gone wrong is the game :Pool of Radiance: an older top down D&D game. or as its commonly known "Pool of Uninstall Windows" because the uninstall would break windows and the company had to issue a downloadable uninstaller to use to work around the problem.

When I find that some software is leaving some data after uninstall, I use some special softwares clean the left overs. The saddest part is that those special softwares also leaves some data after uninstall.

What you mean to say is that Windows developers do not bother to provide a safe way to remove registry data.

Well: there is a tool called revo uninstaller. It’s free! Scans for leftover junk after the uninstaller did. it’s thing

sudo pacman -Rns Leaving junk? Nope.

I'll tell you, I have a tiny boot drive that is really just for windows and some smaller programs that I want to run fast. It continually fills up with crap that programs I want installed on my program drive just dump in there, and that stuff doesn't get removed when I use uninstallers, because of course it doesn't. I just love it.

2 words : Revo Uninstaller. It deletes the leftovers in folders and even cleans your registry for you.

Love it when you uninstall a program and it opens a page with a sad puppy or cat saying something like "we are sorry to see you go..."

The end of the story; lazy development. Basically the same reason why a web-browser, or pdf viewer is over 100MB these days :(

Laughs in “Sudo pacman -Rns”

“Some programs are eager to write to, but leave junk behind” Like some house guests. Remember house guests? 2020 is messed.

"Not a big deal if nobody else uses your pc".......and you forget to delete your browsing history

Why do these video’s always upload at the right time🤣

Programs are like jobs that people perform various tasks to carry out using various tools and devices. Ideally you'd clean and tidy up the place every time after a task is completed, but it's sometimes more efficient to be messy as long as you can memorize where things are because you can start working with the tools immediately without having to take them out like a program initializing a task from scratch every time.

use Revo Uninstaller, and when uninstalling a program use advanced search, it's incredible how much jerk it detects, it also allows you to install Microsoft bloatware! NOTICE: dont uninstall steam games from there or it will detect other steam games as junk and will delete them too I learnt it the hard way haha

You forgot about install tracking. Some applications will purposely leave files and/or registry entries on the system to prevent people from uninstalling and reinstalling evaluation software in an attempt to create a perpetual evaluation period.

Linus can still try to sell us his cleanup programme LOL

Had a client who did the 7 to 10 free upgrade, and had system restore on, to their C: drive, guess what happened when also windows 7 backup and restore kept backing up more and more restore points to the main drive for some reason, it filled up an entire 2TB of space including her windows install. TreeSize Free ran as administrator is a really good way to find these things because they aren't always apparent at first, a lot of times excess used space can simply be from onedrive or google drive or some kind of cloud storage being set up for "Offline Files" which I learned recently is mostly unnecessary and sometimes a problem if you work in a setting where multiple users collaborate and god forbid anyone has any sync issues.

Me: Uninstall! Visual Studio: LOL, sure...

Excellent video. It's about time someone made a short & sweet video of this topic.

Imagine having to use uninstaller and clean stuff up to remove a program _This post was made by the Linux gang_

I remember uninstalling Norton antivirus which caused allsorts of problems, from stopping Outlook from working to stopping windows from booting, and even when you managed to get rid of it you couldn’t reinstall any anti virus program.

Well, some programs can uninstall even too well. *early version of minecraft dungeons uninstaller*

Another reason registry entries are left behind is to prevent you from abusing the "7-day trial" system on some apps.

"Back in the day when games installed DirectX..." Literally every Ubisoft game after first download, press play and again starts to check and install additional programs

I use Revo Uninstaller which let's you delete leftover registry files. Even find additional folders you can delete afterwards. It's crazy how much junk is left behind by some programs.

"Why Your Programs Leave JUNK Behind" Just like people when they purposely leave their crap at your house, so they have an excuse to come back!

Some potentially unwanted programs like adware or browser hijackers will leave actual malware behind. If you're uninstalling something like that, use Revo Uninstaller to make sure you get everything.

Me: "dies" Linus: "See! I told you it would happen!"

That's why there's Revo. It's been my go to tool for uninstalling programs on Windows for many years now. I don't run Windows on any of my home computers, but at work all the "legit" reasons why programs leave junk behind after uninstalling can usually be mitigated so it's pretty rare that there's a need for leaving all the junk behind on a system. I'd be happy if uninstallers had a "kill everything" option so you didn't have to use a 3rd party tool, but here are...

Summary: "Because they are not designed well enough."

I remember there rare glitchy programs that would just give an error when trying to uninstall, but would also give an error when trying to delete their folder. Then I'd just run Malwarebytes over the thing and it would often be picked up as harmful and fixed

My OCD requires me to scrounge through my Program Files and Appdata for programs that left stuff behind.

Registry residuals can actually be absolutely terrible for some programs. I had to uninstall and reinstall zune once, years ago, and it refused to reinstall because its leftover registry entries made the installer recognize it as already installed, when it wasn't. I had a hell of a time resolving that little issue.

Seriously? Microsoft helps with a video and you choose Firefox as an example for a program you no longer need?

What I hate is the fact that sometimes you don’t even get an uninstall option with some programs. You have to download a separate uninstall program, and then that program leaves behind 90% of what it put on your computer so instead of getting back 248mb you get maybe 50mb, and a random folder you’re probably not going to open again.

I never knew Obi-Wan was a Tech Tip Giver.

From my experience Windows leaves way more "temp" files than programs leave residual files. Windows 7 had a huge problem with not clearing hundreds of GBs of temp files. Idk if it's fully fixed with Windows 10, but I still clean it on occasion, especially a month or so after big updates.

i remember some cracked software would delete everything i mean EVERYTHING on that drive lol

Linux and all the dependencies are tracked, there are no junk files, all the software gets updated automatically (or exactly the way you want), it doesn't require restarts even if you are running the drivers or software that is updated. There is no maintenance, no viruses, just the best security and stability, and you can run the whole operating system in 200-500mb of RAM, and as the software itself needs less ram to run in most cases, 2gb is plenty enough for common Internet / office use.

This is the same man who installed a petabyte server...... let that sink in

I always find uninstallers that keep user data horrible, just give the user a option to backup their userdata. It's horrible because misconfigurations, corrupt files can also occur in the userdata which is loaded when an applications starts and therefor it crashes. So the user tries to uninstall/install the program to fix the issue without any result, and this happens a LOT, and many user don't understand what is exactly happening.

Leave it to Microsoft to justify why uninstalling a software product leaves your PC in a less than desirable state.

I hate it when they leave traces because in my use case, if I uninstall because something went wrong and want to reinstall again to fix the issue, the issue remains because of those files.

Me: *Install a cleanup registry utility software Again Me: *Done deleting them Also Me Again: *Time to delete the utility software Utility Software: *U S u R e A b O u T T h A t ?*

i love tech quickie so much info in such a short time id really like tech longer so you can go much more in-depth

Thats why I just take the whole folder and bin it

The biggest part is in the tmp folder or in the update windows installer folder. I forgot the exact path, but in forum they basically told the user to reinstall windows from scratch ...

Well... honestly this is a Windows problem. Other OSs usually handle installation and uninstallation themselves, they don't leave that responsibility to the app itself.

I can recommend WinDirStat software. It scans your hard drive and lists all directories and files inside sorting them by size. Useful for finding out if folder that takes way too much space is really needed.

"and most leftover files only take over a minuscule amount of space" Yeah, like windows update......

there used to be something called DLL Hell where several programs relied on different versions of a DLL file.

I hadn't been using the built-in uninstallers for years Instead, I'm using Revo Uninstaller

Garry's mod leaves add-ons behind all the time. I uninstall the game but I barely got a gig back, then I check the install directory and see my 78GB are held hostage by all of my add-ons that steam didn't get rid of. Hate when that happens.

Windows: DLL HELL Good thing I use Linux!

I've had one where the uninstall just renamed the exe file removing the extension and left everything behind lmao

Linus, here's a request. Please make a video "How to install Nvidia Control Panel (Rant)".

Back in the day I played the Karoshi Suicide Salaryman games (imagine if an entire game was those Mario Maker levels where the goal is to die but the level won't let you) and one of the other games by the guy who made them used a registry key to enforce its gimmick that you only get one chance to do the right thing, even if you uninstall and reinstall.

Easy on Linux: sudo pacman -Rns "program name" Done, no need to do anything else.

I like to use old app called WinDirStat to check what amount of data is stored in which folders. Very useful - it visualizes data amounts and file types by folders.

So what I am hearing is: "it's not Microsoft's fault. It's everyone else's fault." This message sponsored by Microsoft.

You're not mentioning encrypted registry keys. A lot of uninstallers will not touch these intentionally, mainly so that when reinstalling some trial software the time counter isn't reset.

Damn they really out here removing firefox *ALL HAIL FIREFOX, BEST BROWSER OF ALL BROWSERS!*

My antivirus has a fleet of tools and one of them is a powerful uninstaller which can uninstall stubborn programs and also create a restore point and remove leftover files and registry entrys

“Your hard drive has gotten uncomfortably full, and you’ve decided to remedy the issue by uninstalling some unwanted programs.” *stares at 12 HDDs/SSDs* Haha yeah...

One of the other reasons to have an uninstaller that removes all those miscellaneous files is if you are getting any sort of weirdness or errors from a program and need to try a clean install. Removing all previous traces of the software before reinstalling can help fix a lot of issues.

Use Linux Problem Solved!!! (apt autoremove program --purge)

I've had multiple instances where I'd remove a game or program, only to find 20gb or more of data still taking up one of my drives hidden in an appdata folder. Super annoying to hunt these down. It's rare, but again, super annoying when you don't know where the hell dozens of gigabytes of storage are.

Last time I was this Early, the Luftwaffe has Aerial Superiority over Europe!

CCleaner has a Registry cleaner as well to remove broken or redundant installs.

The last time i was so early, linus didn't have a beard

I had used a software called patch cleaner. It was good and I freed 32 go on my old computer. I would recommend to first move the files that they ask, then reboot and check whether all apps are working. Then you can delete the moved files to free space.

TL;DR: Lazy developers.

In Mac, you often can’t uninstall a program like on windows, you just have to drag app from applications folder to trash can. On linux, everything handled by apt, yum (there is I believe new repository mgmt tool on fedora)and snaps.

Imagine not having a package manager..... What is this, the stone age?

To be completely fair, they did get better at cleaning after themselves. Like in most cases, only settings, user profile and few registry keys, which usually contain certain program wide settings, will remain behind. So if you reinstall it, it might ask fewer questions, it might not need to ask for serial number, though with online activation this is less of an issue and will of course resume where you left off. But yeah, if you really want to clean up, grab Revo Uninstaller, free version will do decent job at running uninstaller, then scanning for leftovers and cleaning. Though be mindful about saves for games, because you can have situation where saves on cloud for the game aren't up to date... just recently happened to me with Fallen Order, so I got 2 gaming sessions worth of rollback. Which is also what games mostly leave behind. Same goes for any other data, so don't just select all and delete. If you really want to clean your system up, here are few things you can do, do them at your own responsibility, because you can break things. And while they should be fixable with fresh Winodws install, you might want to be careful, so you don't have to deal with hassle. Still, it is things I do to keep system clean. Check Documents and subfolders for any game folder left over, a lot of games will keep saves and settings there, as well as recordings, if they support gameplay recording. Then also go to C drive, in Folder Options enable "Show hidden folders and files" and open "Program Data", some programs keep data and saved settings there. Afterwards, also go back to C, open Users, open your userrname, open "AppData" and it has three subfolders, some programs leave data there too. Do bare in mind, that sometimes they will leave it in developer/publisher folder and then game folder. However do bare in mind that this will break programs, if you delete anything you shouldn't. Microsoft folder for example might contain data parts of Windows need to work properly. For further cleaning you also have C, Windows, Temp. Files in Temp folder are temporary, so they will just get recreated and are safe to delete. And C, Users, username, AppData, Local and Temp, files in this folder are mostly also safe to delete, thought there are few uninstall programs that rely on data there to uninstall program or game, so it may or may not break uninstaller or two. But this isn't frequent, though cleaner be aware. As for registy, that one even I advise to leave alone. It is easy to permanently break something by deleting wrong keys there. Generally, I only recommend you to do it if you get issue you can't fix in any other way. Like application insisting it is installed, when there are no other traces of it on the system, I only once got that and had to clean out registry. But otherwise it basically impacts nothing, since even bloated registry is still tiny in comparison to most things you got in RAM. And unused keys there will simply be ignored. As for safer way to clean junk on disk, just use Disk Clenup Utility build in Windows. Make sure to also hit to check for system files. Other than that, it mostly is advanced stuff, like using DriveStoreExploler to remove backup copies of old drivers which Windows keeps hoarding and most people don't need. Mostly it is harmless, but when you got 500MB per display driver and you got 10-20 versions, that is 5-10GB over time, so it might be worth cleaning up. DSE has one button solution to select old drivers and then hit delete so generally it is safe-ish enough for general recommendation. And sometimes WinSXS gets bloated, so you can use Command Prompt with administrator privileges, to clean it up with command: Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup If you are ok losing ability to roll back updates, you can also wipe backups of older versions that aren't used anymore: Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase And that is it with bolat cleanup, beside uninstalling stuff you don't need.