When you uninstall a program using the add/remove in the control panel is thier a program out there or a safe way to go in the registry and make sure that all the componants associated with that program are deleted?? Thanks in advance.

not really. there is, however, software (Total Uninstaller, Uninstall Manager, etc.) available that is monitoring the installation, creating snapshots and allow a proper de-installation. as an example: i just posted this in a different thread. Total Uninstall was reporting more than 7000 registry entries made by Symantec Ghost. how on earth do you expect to clean up that mess manually? :-) Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.' icq 10183575

Regseeker. The internet is a series of tubes!

You'll have to use a registry cleaner to remove all the invalid entries and file paths. I prefer the free RegSeeker. It's not unusual to find 1000's if you uninstall or remove a lot of programs.

I use both RegSeeker and also CrapCleaner. I get a little leery with RegSeeker though because it found over 200 invalid registry entries, so I deleted all it found. I was forced to do a "system restore" though because it botched something up within Windows XP. I never found out what it deleted.... I just did the "system restore" to get it all back in order. I'm not too experienced yet to know for certain exactly what it deleted. CrapCleaner though, has never caused any problems for me and it seems quite thorough too. My favorite cleaner was an older program called RegCleaner (by someone named Journi, I think..) I finally found a download site that had it, but it simply refuses to run correctly on this new Dell E-510. It always hangs halfway through the scan, then freezes to where I have to kill it via "end process" in Task Manager.

I have quit using regseeker for cleaning as it always kills my NTI cd/dvd burning software. I use crap cleaner and registry first aid. http://computervitals.com/

Regseeker is probably the finest registry cleaner on the freeware market, still, it does NOT replace a decent Uninstaller. it is in fact a 'different kettle of fish'. If you don't believe it, try uninstalling any Symantec, McAfee or Ahead product (for example), run regseeker and then search the registry manually for entries referring to these programs ... you'd be surprised :-) Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.' icq 10183575