Of course, you already know the answer. Microsoft doesn't improve this kind of thing because it doesn't have to. It's got a bad case of a little thing called Monopoly Complacence.

[Edited excerpt from "Want a New Headache? Try to Uninstall," by David Pogue, New York Times, February 17, 2005.]

The resulting tsunami was confined to the Times forum for reader opinions on Pogue's columns, since participants weren't illustrious professors with access to vent on Op-Ed pages. But there, the tearful joy was palpable. Many seemed stunned that Microsoft's obscene defects, which for decades have paralyzed information processes and enraged the common man in every city of every nation of every continent, were finally, incredibly, being openly acknowledged in an establishment media organ like the Times:

It is so reassuring to hear that David Pogue has the same sort of problems with his PC that I have with mine. Misery loves company!

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I completely agree with the column addressing the complexity (and incompleteness) of uninstall procedures in Windows. It is infuriating to think that I have a hard drive cluttered with files whose possible use I cannot reasonably determine.

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Amen. I thought I was alone in the world wondering what the h@@### are these DLL's I might remove at my peril. What's outrageous is that we pay good money for such sloppy, and yes, THOUGHTLESS programming. What's even more astonishing is that an operating system so full of bugs and vulnerabilities is so dominant. The old saying is "cream rises." In this case, it's the garbage.

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Thanks for drawing attention to another fragment of Microsoft misery.

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For the first time in nearly a year or maybe a year and a half you have written an article that is close to my heart.

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Thank you David. Not being as tech savvy as most, I am totally intimidated by the statement that removing a program may corrupt untold numbers of other programs. As a result I back off and leave the unwanted material clogging the arteries of my computer.

There was also heavy traffic concerning third party programs to which desperate users could turn to do the job Windows is supposed to do:

The best cure I've found for the uninstall blues is PC Magazine's free utility "Unclean".

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I have the same problem with uninstalling stuff, it drives me nuts.

I went to get Unclean 2.0, but it's not free. You have to pay to join PC MAG. No thanks!

Any other suggestions for a decent program remover would be greatly appreciated. I know there must be some out there.

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Besides Unclean 2.0 I have found Total Uninstall 2.34. Any others?

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