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Removing Games From Computer Might Not Be Worth the Bother

Posted on: Tuesday, 7 March 2006, 15:00 CST

Q. My grandchildren download many games on my computer and when they are tired of them I try to remove them. Some of them give me an error message that says, "could not open INSTALL.LOG file." Is there a way I can fix this so I can remove these programs?

_Joann Kornas, Kenilworth, Ill.

A. Far too often the Add and Remove Programs control panel built into Windows encounters problems with uninstalling stuff because certain files get written over after the software is loaded onto a computer.

A lot of times the solution is fairly easy because all one needs to do to remove the software is to reinstall it and then click on Start and Control Panel, then Add and Remove Programs and select remove again.

The idea is that when the no-longer-wanted program is installed a second time it will create all of the needed files. Then the uninstall routine will work as promised.

I hope this is going to be the case here, but I've got to tell you that gamemakers tend to include more outlaw elements than other software creators. Sometimes they cut corners by not bothering to provide a valid uninstall routine.

You can find out if your games were installed with removal routines by checking the complex collection of system files and folders called the Windows registry. So click on Start and then Run, type in regedit and click OK.

This brings up the registry in an interface that permits making changes. You only want to find information, so be careful not to make any changes in the display.

Click on the folder called HKEY(underscore)LOCAL(underscore)MACHINE. Go down to SOFTWARE and open it. Scroll down to Microsoft and click that heading. Now go down to Windows and open it and go to Current Version and open it.

Now scroll down to Uninstall and open that folder. You will find a long list of all of the programs on the computer that are registered to include a removal module.

Look for your games and click the names. This opens a display in a box to the right of the folder list that will show the name and location of the uninstall software.

If your program is listed you probably will be able to get rid of it by just reinstalling the software.

If the program isn't listed, then there is no routine available. In this case it is better to just leave things alone rather than trying to do a removal by hand, which involves finding all of the files and libraries and other items scattered around the hard drive by individual programs.

Q. I was happy to read your response to a Photoshop Elements question because their tech support will charge me $39 for an issue which should have been addressed in the help file.

Every time I save an image I find that the software presents me with a duplicate image with an "edited-1" term in each name.

That is not bad, but I also get the term "copy of ... " in the name. I know the difference between "Save" and "Save as" regarding a duplicate image.

What I simply want to know is how I go about turning those options off.

_AliceBrand @brockport.edu

A. Save yourself $38.50 ($39 minus 50 cents for the newspaper) and read on, Ms. B.

The creators of Adobe Photoshop Elements built these automatic copy features into the software to prevent that awful feeling when one starts messing around with a treasured image and rashly clicks on Save after making changes that look awful on closer inspection.

The popular consumer-level photography software uses that "edited-1" kicker when dealing with photographs that are opened by using the convenient Photo Browser feature. Click on the Photo Browser icon at the top of the display and the software presents large thumbnail versions of all of the images in whatever folder is being targeted. When users make changes to images called up by this browser and click on Save, the "edited-1" or "edited-2" and so on gets attached to the name each time it is saved.

But one can also use the regular File and Open commands in the Elements toolbar to select a photograph, and the software will not automatically rename images opened this way. Instead, when one clicks on Save, there is a small checkbox for "Save as a copy" in the Save box. Click that and the image is saved as a copy. If you don't click it, the software will overwrite the original image.

Q. Every time I close my Internet Explorer browser (I have Version 6), I get that pop-up window that starts with, "Microsoft Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Blah, blah, blah ... Send Error Report/Don't Send."

I've reloaded Internet Explorer, checked for recent downloads at the Microsoft tech site, scanned for viruses, changed security settings _ all to no avail. This problem abruptly, according to my event log, started Jan. 12, and recorded this message:

"CI has started for catalog g:

system volume information

catalog.wci."

_Nicholas F. Talesfore @talesforedesign.com

A. Ask any candid bachelor and you will learn that one housekeeping strategy involves sweeping dust under the rug. I'd suggest you consider grabbing a virtual broom here since there is an easy way to sidestep this problem that otherwise becomes extremely difficult to solve.

When you trigger that browser shutdown window, a "service" kicks in indexing information about it. This indexing service conflicts with something on your computer, probably in the browser's own software, and things freeze up.

All one needs do to stop this is to disable the indexing service, which is something few computer users ever need. This service takes up very large amounts of drive space and the default in Windows is to switch it off. Yours was activated, however.

So click on Start and then Control Panel and Administrative Tools. In the Administrative Tools control panel, click on the little gear box icon for Services.

Now scroll down to the line reading Indexing Service and give that a right-click. Select Properties in the pop-up menu that appears. There you will find a drop-down box with options to enable, disable and manually start the service. Pick manual and close the control panel.

You also might try changing your home page in the Web browser to see if that fixes the freeze-ups. The indexing service reaches out to Web servers to collect information and there is a chance _ slim, but a chance _ that if you have a different start page, the conflict won't happen.

In the browser, click on Tools and Internet Options. The home page is set in a line under the General tab in the menu this summons. Put in something different than your current site and confirm the choice.

Should this fix the glitch, you can decide whether to keep the old home page and retain the indexing service or just shut indexing down and be done with it.

___

(Contact Jim Coates via e-mail at jcoates@tribune.com or via snail mail at the Chicago Tribune, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago IL 60611. Questions can be answered only through this column. Add your point of view at chicagotribune.com/askjim.)

___

(c) 2006, Chicago Tribune.

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Source: Chicago Tribune

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