I RECALL reading in Technology Post about some utilities for Windows that can go through the system and uninstall programs that someone does not want to use. How does this work and where can I get such a utility? LAUREL SO Hung Hom There seem to be more and more of such programs, probably because there is such a need for them among Windows users. After all, frustration rules supreme among novice (and sometimes even experienced) Windows users when they want to remove applications no longer needed but have to hunt high and low among obscure files for odd commands and file names that must be deleted to prevent the system messing up.
One new program from the US company Neocom Microspecialists is called wInformant. It is a general Windows utility that includes an uninstall module that appears to work well enough. It will go through sub-directories on your system and get rid of files with extensions such as .dll and .vbx.
These files write themselves into various Windows sub-directories when a Windows application is installed and, therefore, are not erased when everything in a particular programs directories is deleted. Uninstall programs such as wInformant looks for these files and gets rid of them, freeing up disk space and making the system run smoother.
wInstall has a few other utilities that make it a handy tool to have around. One feature, called Prof.Edit, lets you edit any .ini file on your hard disk. An .ini file is one that contains commands that tell Windows and its applications how to run.
Some commands regarding applications loaded on to Windows get written in here and if you remove these applications or want to change them, then the .ini files have to be checked and edited.
This is no simple task because the win.ini file alone contains hundreds of lines of code.