Basic Use of ZSoft Uninstaller

ZSoft Uninstaller

Basic Use of ZSoft Uninstaller
Often what you want to do is simple: You want to uninstall an application.
With ZSoft Uninstaller, this is very easy, and it even allows you to search for 'leftovers'.

Inside the ZSoft Uninstaller main window you will (per default) see a search-bar on the left. If you don't see it, remove the checkmark from the 'Hide Search-bar' item in the 'Settings' menu. Here you can type what you're looking for and the list on the right will update accordingly. You can naturally also just scroll through the list to find what you're looking for.

Once you find what you want to uninstall either double-click the item, select it and press <<enter>>, right-click it and select 'uninstall' (or any of the other options if you wish) or select it and press the big 'Uninstall' button on the toolbar. The uninstall-routine for the program you have selected will now start. Please note, however, that this is the programs own uninstall-routine, and ZSoft Uninstaller does nothing to enhance this part.

Selecting Uninstall

Once the uninstall routine has finished, you will be presented with a box at the bottom of the ZSoft Uninstaller main window, asking if you want to search for leftovers. Leftovers are files and registry entries that the uninstall routine left behind.

Do you want to search for leftovers?

You can ignore this by pressing on the 'x' in the right corner of the box, and the box will disappear, or you can actually search for leftovers by double-clicking the program on the list. Double-clicking it will bring up a box asking you to edit the extracted keywords. It is recommended that you remove any very regular and short words, and add strings if the extracted data, for some reason, seems insufficient. This data is what is used to search for leftovers. You also have the option to choose what matching should be used. Should the data just contain the keyword (i.e. 'me' matches everything with 'me' in it), or should the data contain a keyword as a word (i.e. 'me' matches only the word 'me', and not, for instance, 'media'). Once you're done, press 'Next'.

Editing keywords

The search is now taking place. Once the search has finished, you should go over every item, and choose if you want to remove it or not. You can right-click any item and select 'Jump To' to browse the found data so you can make a more informed decision. By right-clicking you can also 'go one level up'. This broadens the result, i.e. a found file becomes a found directory (where the file is stored), a found directory becomes another found directory (where the first directory was found) etc. The same goes for registry entries, where a found value becomes a found key, and a found key becomes another found key.
Once your done, click 'Remove' to remove the selected items. Files and folders will be moved to the recycle bin, and registry entries will be backed up and deleted. The backups can be found by selecting 'Registry Backups' from the 'Functions' menu in the main window of ZSoft Uninstaller.
Please note, that even though registry items are backed up, and files are only moved to the recycle bin, you should only delete stuff you are sure are no longer needed. It's better to delete a bit less than a bit too much.

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