How to completely uninstall Handbrake (or any program)

Hi. Until yesterday, I had Handbrake 10.2 installed. On launch, a message appeared (within the GUI) inviting me to click for 10.3. Which I did. I can't recall the exact sequence of events but it appeared to have gone smoothly and I was left with a popup saying Do you really want to uninstall 10.2? I said Yes as that seemed logical.

I then went to open up 10.3 – nothing there. The only Handbrake related file I could find was a defunct link to the shortcut I had on my desktop. Ah well, so off I went and downloaded the 10.3 installer. But before I ran it, I used regedit to delete all registry entries referring to Handbrake. That way, my PC would be 'clean' right?

After the install, 10.3 launched and immediately showed a message about my previous presets and there it was – 10.3 had the custom preset that I'd made with 10.2! Not only that, but 10.3 was able to load a DVD with DRM protection. To do that with 10.2, I had to copy a 'special' dll file into Program Files/Handbrake.

It seems I was mistaken then. Uninstalling a program and then deleting registry entries doesn't 'clean' your PC. Otherwise, my Handbrake 10.3 wouldn't have known about my old preset nor would it have the 'special' dll file.

So how DO you completely remove a program?

Software settings are often stored in hidden folders eg for Handbrake on my pc -

C:\users\<my name>\AppData\Roaming\Handbrake

There may also be other locations. To see this AppData folder you have to go Control Panel, Folder Options, View and click 'show hidden files, folders'. Some softwares delete everything on uninstall, but most leave some settings behind. To fully uninstall, you might like to look at Revo Uninstaller - after uninstall it will search for leftover files etc (incl Registry) if required. The free Revo only uninstalls 32 bit programs - you need the paid version for x64 stuff (the free version doesn't even see x64 programs).

Download Revo Uninstaller Freeware - Free and Full Download - Uninstall software, remove programs, solve uninstall problems

The AppData folders are hidden for a reason ie to stop accidental deletion of important files. I'd also steer clear of seach + delete in the Registry - it's easy to turn a pc into a brick.

BTW, the first time I reinstalled a program - to fix a problem - and it magically had the same settings, I was somewhat surprised to say the least.

Thanks to you both. I'd forgotten about AppData - that's no doubt the reason.

whs said:

That is actually a very good question. My research found that it is actually not possible. Only a system reset with an image can accomplish that - and that may not always be practical.

What makes you say that?

davesev said:

What makes you say that?

I think I can answer that too.
The basic problem you face is that you don't know what to look for, or where, or anything. An installer is only supposed to deploy files in specific locations and initialize default settings, but in no way forced to do anything in particular, it can put files virtually everywhere (more specially considering that installers are run with administrator permissions).

The corresponding uninstaller is supposed to know all the installer does, but once again, there is no way to enforce that it really removes everything and restores the system to the exact same state as before.
Moreover, many don't touch per-user settings (sometimes a difficult task) and it's not a bad practice to leave those. User generated files also remain, as the uninstaller is unaware of their existence. And finally we always have the case of the poorly made or buggy uninstaller that "forgets" some things behind.

It all boils down to you don't know what the installer did, therefore you cannot know exactly how to reverse its effects. To some extent, when you install a program you must put a degree of trust in what it does and that it must be able to clean it up after itself.
Registry cleaners aren't perfect too. What they really do is to look for the typical signs that programs leave, like its folder in program files, settings in appdata and programdata, and the like. They try to identify by using the name, company, any text they can find about the software to clean, but they in fact have no precise idea of what it's needed to do. Cleaners make educated guesses, nothing more. You can attempt the same manually too, but it would also be a best guess and nothing exact.

More often than not, it's not relevant if not every single file gets reverted before and a lost file or two don't cause any trouble, but from time to time they do. And in those cases, if you want to be sure that you revert everything, you have to restore a full system backup. Or try to revert the effects manually, if you can even determine what they are.

This is also, not coincidentally, the very same reason why when striked by a virus infection, the only reasonable course of action is a clean install. You don't know what the malware did to your system, and your priority is to get to a safe point, so a clean install becomes unavoidable.

There are also programs that can monitor where registry files and data folders were created. So in a sense, one could reinstall the program and watch its activity.

F22 Simpilot said:

There are also programs that can monitor where registry files and data folders were created. So in a sense, one could reinstall the program and watch its activity.

That's a superior alternative to those crapy "uninstallers", to watch out what it does really do and undo it. One must take the precaution of monitor the install only.

However, that alternative doesn't cover changes made by the program itself, only its installer.