Software Forum

I have a program (Spyware Eliminator by Aluria Software) that I need to uninstall and eventually reinstall.

Is there any reason not to use the AceUtilities Software Removal tool to do this (instead of Add/Remove Programs in WinXP)?

What exactly does the AU program do that the Add/Remove does not? Under any circumstances would using the AU program not be advisable?

I also assume after the removal, a registry cleaning and compaction would be in order, yes?

Many thanks.

You can use Ace Utilities to uninstall the application.

Ace Utilities Uninstall feature does the same things that Windows Add/Remove applet does. So, I don't see any instances where AU uninstall feature should not be used.

If you want to clean the Registry after an uninstall operation, you have to do it manually - i.e., go to the Registry Cleanup section and perform a scan.

Registry compaction after an uninstallation is not necessary unless you uninstalled a huge software like MS Office.

Thanks for the reply.

Are there SPECIFIC advantages to using Ace Utilities Software removal tool over Add/Revove Programs--in other words, does AU remove more for example than Add/Remove Programs? Does it remove registry entries installed when a program is first installed. Can you be specific?

Again, many thanks.

Uninstalling via AU is the same as uninstalling using Add/Remove. As you may already know, when a program is installed an uninstallation entry/command is also created which is typically stored in a particular section of the Registry. Both AU and Add/Remove fetch the uninstall command from this section to perform the uninstallation.

In an ideal world, the installation program used to install a software should also remove all entries when uninstalled. But this does not happen. So, even after uninstallation, we may have to run a Registry scanning program to find out entries left out. So, I would suggest you run AU Registry cleanup after using the AU Uninstall Manager.

In some cases, some entries will still remain in the Registry. Such entries cannot be programatically decided as invalid. In such cases, you may have to use some Registry search program, like 'Registry Find' ( can be found on http://www.acelogix.com/regfinder.html ). Type in the entry you want to find, for example 'Spyware', or 'Aluria', and perform the search. Entries found after the search can be deleted.

The Add/remove tool of Ace does have one advantage. If the program's uninstaller does not delete some (specific) registry entries, Ace's uninstaller will delete it.

I use "Registry Find" from Acelogix, and I must say it's the best registry find tool I've ever used to date and I've used quite a few in my computing experience. And I know that it will only get better in the future!!!