Liz McNaughton

Someone recently asked me about removing programs under Windows Vista….

In keeping with this blog’s Ethic of “things that may be of use to people” here’s what I said -

Before getting into the “How” lets have a look at what to get rid of.

Some things may be obvious “oh I have not used that in ages” type programs are good to go.

If you Don’t know what something is Google it, then decide – if you still don’t know email your friendly neighborhood techi the name of the program, as displayed, and they will tell you more about it and what happens if you get rid of it.

If you are the nervous type – backup important data like photos and music before you start. In fact I would say back things up regularly anyway. If you ever need to restore anything you will be glad you took the time and having a backup gives a nice, happy, warm, safe feeling to any computer user .

Right down to business – How to uninstall programs from Microsoft Vista.

Step one Go to the start button (bottom left hand corner of the screen as shown), click on it and the start menu will appear as shown, Click on the “Control Panel” option (outlined in blue).
Vista Desktop and Start Menu

The Control Panel has two views – Default and Classic. Follow the Step two instructions that match your view.

Step Two for Default view users
In the “Control Panel” look for the option called “uninstall a program” under “Programs”, outlined in blue in the picture below.
Control Panel – Vista Default View


Step Two for Classic view users
In the “Control Panel” look for the option called “Programs and Features”, outlined in blue in the picture below.
Control Panel – Vista Default View

Step Three – Uninstalling programs
You should now be looking at a list like the one shown below. to uninstall a program click on it’s name in the list and click on the “uninstall” option that will appear at the top. again this is outlined in Blue.
Uninstall list

Clicking the Uninstall option will start the uninstall wizard for the relevant program. Each wizard will have different options so read what the wizard asks and you should be OK. If in doubt – Google or your friendly neighborhood techi should help.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 16th, 2009 at 9:12 pm and is filed under Technical. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.