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Andrey “Rarst” Savchenko —  — Software — freeware, portable, revo, uninstall

Getting rid of software with Revo Uninstaller

revo_icon Installing software in Windows is mixed blessing. It allows some good tricks like separate user profiles for same programs and nice team play between apps with centralized settings storage (registry)… But sooner or later day comes when you must part ways with app. Or at least upgrade it.

Process of uninstalling software in Windows… Well far from good. You get long messy list of stuff and that’s all.

Revo Uninstaller is one of utilities that act like steroids for uninstall process.

What it does

While it’s better to leave actual uninstalling to app itself Revo enhances it in two ways:

Before the uninstalling. Between customizable and sortable icon/list view, type-to-find search and manly “hunter mode”… Finding app you want to uninstall or even finding out what app you want to uninstall is extremely fast. :)

revo_interface

After the uninstalling there is optional cleanup that looks for all leftovers. Files, folders, registry settings. Nice both for cleaning junk and reminding to archive data you want to keep (like saved preferences or game saves).

revo_cleanup

Additional functions

There is bunch of secondary tools included for cleaning up, privacy, managing autorun , etc. Still Revo feels mostly like solid uninstaller, rest is because-developers-could stuff.

I only have one but major complaint about app - it could really use queuing to uninstall several apps in single sweep.

Overall

Revo Uninstaller is freeware with portable version available.

Home page http://www.revouninstaller.com/

Download page http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html

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23 Comments

  • WebTrafficROI #

    Thanks for this piece of information , I ve never used any program for unstalling , I use the in build windows uninstaller .. I should try this

  • Rarst #

    Users who have common set of daily apps won't need this, but if you are going through lots of them (or doing PC maintenance) - good uninstaller saves tons of time.

  • Talk Binary #

    I believe its one great application! I downloaded this about a week ago and also posted this on my site! =) I love the fast responsiveness of this program unlike the Windows one!

  • Rarst #

    Yep, speed gain often justifies switching to another app. :) Less time wasted is good.

  • Ky #

    Does anyone use the additional tools that come with Revo? Are they reliable?

  • Rarst #

    @Ky Well, as I said in post I am not really paying them much attention. Maybe used autorun manager once or twice. Are you looking for tool for some specific task? :) Tell me here or drop your suggestion on http://skribit.com/blogs/www-rarst-net and I'll try to post on that if I know something fitting. I reserve right to claim ignorance and look stupid if you need something too complex. :)

  • Ky #

    OK, just wondered if they were safe to use. I'm asking this because once, I had some problems with nCleaner.

  • Rarst #

    @Ky nCleaner is crap. It received some blog hype (I don't exactly understand why), everyone rushed at it and than came wave of negative feedback. :) Well, common sight in blogosphere, that's why I try to stay away form "hype of the day" news. CCleaner is probably THE tool for cleaning. I need to post on it, but it feels like every single tech blog has post on it so I am saving it for dull day. :)

  • Ky #

    Yeah, I use it too. It's pretty comfortable to use. I would like to see a new startup manager, thoough. Something more advanced like Autoruns.

  • Rarst #

    @Ky Heh, I just use autoruns. Bundles of functions in single utility usually sucks. Or costs money. I mostly stick to separate. I currently have Glary Utilities queued to test. It looks a lot like TuneUp Utilities (shareware) clone and TuneUp is excellent (except price). If it is good enough clone it just may take place of quite a few separate small utils.

  • Josh #

    Gotta be careful with this... I finds it removes things it shouldnt. Ive given up one it.

  • Rarst #

    @Josh You mean uninstall cleanup or additional tools? In first case it always asks you to manually check things for deletion. It's not really click-and-forget solutions like junk cleaners. Junk cleaners hunt for junk, Revo hunts for leftovers that can actually be very non-junk.

  • Josh #

    The uninstall and registry scanning tool. First time i used it I wasn't too careful... did max scanning and didnt really check what it was deleting. Bad mistake, stuffed my comp. Next time I only did medium scans and actually check through the junk files for any mistakes... somehow still managed to stuff computer. Not bad, just decreasing stability and annoying error popups, that kinda thing Same thing happened for my gf, who doesn't do any other mucking round with her comp... so I would say its the software. I find that using the vista uninstall tool (which is crap) followed by running disc cleaner for temp files THEN running the free online safety scanner for onecare which does a registry scan and junk file scan. Haven't had any issues yet. I used to be big on 3rd party apps... CCleaner is good... but Ive found it easier of late to simply use MS tools... generally safer.

  • Rarst #

    @Josh CCleaner is good but as I said it looks for 100% junk. :) It can't help with cleaning up leftovers after uninstalls. By the way cleanup in Revo can be disabled in options if you don't want to sort through leftovers. I use it more for fast search than for clenup. MS tools in general are of very varied quality. They can be anywhere between excellent stuff and total crap.

  • Josh #

    Actually that is true, as far as locating applications on your pc which need removing it is good for that. Also you can have multiple uninstalling instances running.

  • Ky #

    @Josh: I've used Revo for months, always choosing the Advanced scan mode and never had a single problem. Make sure you don't uninstall system components and that sort of things that don't show up in Vista uninstaller but for some reason I don't understand yet, they do in Revo.

  • Rarst #

    @Ky >things that don’t show up in Vista uninstaller but for some reason I don’t understand yet, they do in Revo. That's kinda feature of most 3rd party uninstallers. Windows considers user too dumb to touch OS-related stuff and that he is better not knowing. This can also be enabled/disabled in Revo (Options > Uninstaller > Show system components).

  • Ky #

    Thanks for the clarification. I said that because I've seen people removing system files when cleaning up the computer.

  • Rarst #

    @Ky No problem, I like that I started to get conversations on my posts (in the begining it felt like middle of desert) and happy to answer. :)

  • tim #

    how do you only show the programs ive downloaded not all the windows updates

  • Rarst #

    @tim You can disable showing updates in Options > Uninstaller > Show system updates Out of luck if using Vista thou. :)

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