Hello one and all and a great big welcome back to this weeks edition of “The Weekly Geek”. In this weeks fun filled adventure we are going to free up some space on your hard drive by removing old versions of programs and programs that you no longer (if ever) use.
There are two correct ways to remove old programs.
The first is through the “Programs” list on your computer. To do this go to the “Start” button in the lower left of you display and then click on “Programs” or “All Programs”. Look for the name of the program you want to remove.
Click one time on it. If a new menu appears follow it out and look for an “Uninstall XYZ” where XYZ is the program name. If this is available, click one time on it and follow the necessary instructions provided by the Wizard (the step by step screens that appear). You may be required to reboot after removing a program.
If there is not an “Uninstall” feature available you will need to go to the “Control Panel”. To do this go to “Start | Settings | Control Panel” or in Windows XP go to “Start | Control Panel”.
Select the “Add or Remove Programs” icon by double-clicking on it.
The programs will be listed in alphabetical order.
Simply scroll down to the ones you no longer use, click one time on the program name and then select “Change/Remove” in XP or “Add/Remove” in other versions of Windows, once again simply follow the step by step Wizard to clean up the program.
Occasionally, after the Wizard has completed you will have a message appear that states something to the effect “Not all of this program could be cleaned up, press OK to continue”, do not worry about this, select “OK” and forget it for now.
You probably will have several programs to remove so go ahead. If you do not recognize the name of a program do not delete it yet. Connect to the internet as usual and go to your favorite search engine (mine is www.google.com) and search for the name of that program, you might find out that it is something related to your printer, scanner or a program that you do use after all.
One final thing, if you have Adobe Acrobat Reader listed under several versions, you should uninstall the highest numbered version first then the lower versions. After uninstalling all versions, then reinstall the latest version, which is currently 8 for XP, 7 for Windows 2000 and 6 for Windows 98/ME.
Once you have completed the removal of all programs, empty your recycle bin and then run the disk defragmentation program.
Well folks we have run out of time for this weeks fun filled edition of “The Weekly Geek”. Until we meet again, have a virus free week!