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Uninstaller 4 
Software Review by Chris Mayer

Uninstaller box photoWell, summer is finally here. It is almost a tradition in my house that every year at this time, I am forced to clean up a year's worth of trash that has accumulated on the floor of my room. And after having my computer for just around a year now, I faced the reality that I needed to clean out my hard drive. My 2.5 gig hard drive was chalk full of plenty of games, documents, and Microsoft programs. I kept putting it of time and again, until I found Uninstaller 4 from CyberMedia. 

 I managed to scrape together 15MB of space, which was more than enough for Uninstaller to run. I clicked on the catchy orange icon, and up popped the main menu. The first thing I wasn't too happy about was the program scanning my hard drive. Even though this is a time consumng process, it is well worth it when going to remove files. 

 After it finished looking over my drive, it released full controll to my mouse. I set out to explore the ten options it presented me with. I was like a little kid in a toy store. I went to every option I could, and quickly moved on to the next. After I did a quick once over, I decided to take a closer look at each of the buttons. 

 Across the bottom of the screen are four of the available buttons. I'll give you a quick overview of each of them. 

     
  • Help - An online version of the users manual and a whole lot more

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  • About - Version Information and Copyright notice

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  • Prefrences - Choices about directories and start-up options await you

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  • Exit - Exits the program, but you know you can't press that yet!
The rest of the buttons are arranged verticly on the right side of the main window.
     
  • Application Cleanup - This is where you go to uninstall any given program

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  • File Cleanup - Allows you to cleanup any extra and useless files cluttering your hard drive

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  • Quick Cleanup - Need a fast 50MB for your new game? Select this and UnInstaller will get rid of just enough junk to get you that space if possible

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  • Restore - This allows you to restore any uninstalled program if you change your mind, that is if you backed it up

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  • Reports - UnInstaller generates reports about every little thing it does, and will gladly let you look over its shoulder

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  • Update - With this cool feature you can get program updayes from CyberMedia over the Internet
Now that I know how the program is layed out, I was for once eager to start cleaning. I selected Application Cleanup, and selected the victim from the tree of my Start Menu. Ahh...BackWeb. I really don't use that anymore, so I made the decision to send it to the big floppy disk in the sky. UnInstaller then asked me what I wanted to do with BackWeb. It will let me delete it, move it, archive it, or transport it. I wasn't sure what some these options would do, so I selected Help instead. 
  • Delete - That removes the application from the computer

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  • Move - That moves the application to another drive or folder, updating everything to make Windows happy

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  • Archive - This compresses an application to help conserve disk space, without removing the program

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  • Transport - Allows you to pick-up an application and take it with you to any other computer on a removable disk, and set I up properly on the other system.
With all of that out of the way, I was sure that I wanted to delete the program to free up as much space as I could. I clicked on the Next button, and UnInstaller set to work finding every last little bit of BackWeb scattered all over my drive. 

 A few seconds later, UnInstaller asks me if I want to backup the program, and if so what directory to put it in. It also asks if I want to delete all the files associated with BackWeb, and then tells me approximatly how much space I will save. 

I say kill it - no backups! I was sure that I wouldn't use it again. Just to be safe, I took a quick glance over all the files UnInstaller would be deleting, to find that everything looked good. I confirmed that I wanted my hard drive back, it set off to work. 

When it was finished, it gave me a summary of what was done, and allowed me to look at a very complete report of the delete operation. I didn't think that it could be that easy. I went and looked around, only to find absolutly no trace of BackWeb. The only thing left was that extra three MB that I could eventualy store more useless programs on. But isn't that the whole point of having a big hard drive? 

 The obviously painless delete operation encouraged me to try out some of UnInstaller's other functions. Everything like Transport and Move worked beautifully. I learned to appreciate the Installation monitor, which allows UnInstaller to have the complete picture of any particular program that is being installed. 

 There are so many features in UnInstaller that it will put you at ease when it is time for you to clean out your hard drive. Everyone will eventually have to face the lack of space. Don't be caught off guard... Be ready to take your drive back. 

 UnInstaller 4 is available at any local computer stores for around $30. Have Fun! 

 Chris Mayer is a Sophomore at Communications Arts High School. He enjoys playing trombone in the Taft HS band, as well as helping out at the San Antonio Children's Museum, and wiring schools with NetDay and Internet Odyssey.