{"id":236577,"date":"2023-07-27T13:59:19","date_gmt":"2023-07-27T13:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uninstalr.com\/blog\/?p=236577"},"modified":"2025-02-13T15:01:11","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T15:01:11","slug":"comparing-windows-uninstallers-and-making-uninstalr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uninstalr.com\/blog\/comparing-windows-uninstallers-and-making-uninstalr\/","title":{"rendered":"A Mad Journey: Comparing Windows uninstallers, getting upset and then deciding to make my own"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Update for 2025: <\/strong>I have released an updated uninstaller benchmark. You can read it from: Uninstaller benchmark: What is the best uninstaller for Windows?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been involved – and let\u2019s be real here – often obsessed with many things about the Windows operating system. Back in the mystical 1990\u2019s, I made a little free app called RegCleaner. Maybe you have used it, maybe you weren\u2019t even born then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In either case, this is a story about how I tend to go too far. And by \u201ctoo far\u201d, I don\u2019t mean the having one too many pints with the lads on Saturday night kind of \u201ctoo far\u201d. I mean spending months of my life figuring out why some of those bits inside my computer are 1 when they should be 0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have always been interested in how things accumulate inside your computer. I don\u2019t mean the piles of dust inside your computer (you should clean that later today, though), but I mean the leftover muck that gets stored inside your Windows operating system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Imagine this: You install a new app or a game to your computer. But very soon after you realize you were bamboozled by some sleazy marketer typing those pretty words and you end up uninstalling the whole thing. That\u2019s it, it\u2019s gone, right? Well, no, not at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To keep it simple, Windows as an operating system is like a cat – it might be all pretty and even cute sometimes, but it doesn\u2019t really care about you. Windows also doesn\u2019t care what happens when you install something or when you remove it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basically, the app or game you are installing has almost free hands to do whatever it wants during the installation. It can create files almost anywhere, it can change almost anything and so on. Windows does not care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Microsoft has tried to push a more standardized way to install and uninstall things on Windows, called the Microsoft Store, it has been mostly a failure. If you have ever used Microsoft Store, you probably know why. If you haven\u2019t used that, good for you. Let\u2019s just say I’d rather go visit my dentist than open Microsoft Store. And if you think Microsoft Store is actually pretty good, you should leave right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the backstory why we are here: under the hood, uninstalling apps from Windows is really complicated. For the user, it all looks very simple, but it\u2019s very difficult. And that is why we have so many uninstallers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another reason why one would want to use an uninstaller program in Windows is the ability to uninstall many apps at the same time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have bought a Windows laptop anytime during the last ten years, you know the amount of bloatware junk that comes with it. And if you are going to uninstall all of them using the normal Windows Apps & Features method, you will be spending a long time clicking all those \u201cAre you sure?\u201d, \u201cWait brother, wanna answer our survey on why you don\u2019t like our bloatware?\u201d dialogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behold: Uninstallers<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Windows uninstaller comparison: how good are they, really?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n