While I have lots of problems with Microsoft, you are being a bit unfair. Most of the issues you raise in the column have nothing to do with Microsoft but rather with the application author. Microsoft provides the shell that is used by the application to uninstall.

Further, the unused DLL question is giving you a chance to opt out of a determination made by Windows that the files are no longer needed. If you weren't given the choice you would complain about Microsoft taking an action without your knowledge. You can always keep the superfluous file in any case.

Mr. Pogue:

I suspect that you have not had the experience of handling a panicked telephone call from someone who "accidentally" hit the wrong button in a computer window and deleted a file that was vital for them.

Asking, "Are you sure you want to delete ..." is a simple, non-technical way to give the user a moment to be sure they did not do something by accident or did not change their mind suddenly.

Today's column was an extreme disappointment. Why do you so strongly assert that Microsoft is to blame? Microsoft provides a technology called Windows Installer (msi). The problem occurs when a third party developer decides not to use that technology, which they often do. Wouldn't it make more sense to blame the companies that actually inconvenienced you with a negative Uninstall experience? If Microsoft forced you to use their installer all of the time, wouldn't this be considered restrictive and anti-innovation?

I want to add my 'voice' to what now seems to be a chorus of us who find it offensive that an alleged professional like yourself can't put blame where it belongs. Microsoft is not the bad guy in this case as others have aptly pointed out. I find it alarming and surpising that you would make this sort of gaffe. Some of your readers are apt to believe what you write. Please be careful!

One MS defender was both nasty and apparently a bit shaky on his history:

David, David, David. You remind me of the reporters during the Watergate scandal. If President Nixon would have gone out to the Potomac and walked across the water, your headline would have been "Nixon Can't Swim!" All those program removal problems you are discussing are NOT Microsoft's doing. A little research (you know what that is, right?) would have showed you that the programmers who write those programs you name also write the uninstall software - not Microsoft. Stop being like the rest of the uninformed Microsoft bashers.

Some MS defenders seemed to want to buy credibility by professing disdain for MS — most likely a devious trick by MS plants to deflect suspicion: