REVO Uninstaller

[jim]

PGP - another Symantec product. Not much more to say really.

[SKY]

I appreciate all of your responses.

Given that many comments about REVO seem 'questionable' I'm going to go with Midnight's rec of appremover.

Thanks again!

[J_L]

@kendall: Your work laptop should definitely be imaged.

[kendall.a]

Not a bad idea, but one I'd probably have to do on my own. I doubt our IT folks would do that. Hmmm...I wonder if I need a 4 or 8 GB flash drive to do the image?

Recommendation? Image right after I get it back tomorrow or wait until I've done my "tweaking"? (adding Firefox and my extensions, MyDefrag, etc.)

[tushR]

Originally Posted by kendall

...after the uninstaller had completed, it told me that I needed to reboot. Since Revo wasn't done yet (on moderate mode), I clicked on "reboot later" and allowed Revo to complete it's thing.

If you take my suggestion - Any software that asks for reboot while uninstallation - say yes to it rather than continuing with Revo as then that uninstaller will write entry in runonce and will start before the application files / services kicks in after reboot and uninstall it.
Also the reboot prompt indicates that packager is serious about proper uninstallation of the program.

If you continue with Revo in the above scenario - chances are that it will take out loop and will defeat the purpose of reboot.
----------------------------
I never had issue with Revo in my 32bit machine using advance uninstall.

[J_L]

Originally Posted by kendall

Not a bad idea, but one I'd probably have to do on my own. I doubt our IT folks would do that. Hmmm...I wonder if I need a 4 or 8 GB flash drive to do the image?

Recommendation? Image right after I get it back tomorrow or wait until I've done my "tweaking"? (adding Firefox and my extensions, MyDefrag, etc.)

After tweaking, so you don't have to re-apply them again.

[majoMo]

Originally Posted by kendall

Problem with Revo? I don't know....

I think so... FYI:

Revo Free or Pro can't handle well with app. that need to reboot. Returnil users have some troubles with it. With other app. also.

ZSoft Uninstall freeware are far better when reboot is needed, and with these are adviced to do the unistall with their own uninstaller firstly always. After that, uninstall with ZSoft Uninstaller analyzed/monitoring logs. With ZSoft you can search for leftovers after reboot using their Post Uninstall feature in latest version 2.5, even you don't use snapshot feature.

Revo would uninstall files that are needed for a app. to complete remove itself after the reboot.

It seems Revo has limitations when own app.'uninstaller needs to reboot to do a complete uninstall. If Revo deletes a app. file needed to do the uninstall after reboot, some info could be lost - and the app. uninstaller can't do their entire task.

When an uninstallation needs reboot, Revo does a very poor work (or could even mess the system as the files and registry keys needed after reboot to uninstall the software will fail or will be already removed).

E.g., to uninstall Comodo Time Machine, Returnil with Revo the same could happen...

[wdhpr]

It seems Revo has limitations when own app.'uninstaller needs to reboot to do a complete uninstall. If Revo deletes a app. file needed to do the uninstall after reboot, some info could be lost - and the app. uninstaller can't do their entire task.

This is something I have always wondered about. It seemed counter intuitive to ignore the reboot request. I have been using the app's built in uninstaller after a bad experience with AppRemover while trying to remove a AV program.

[leland.w]

Originally Posted by kendall

Well, even after 5 attempts including a phone call to PGP tech support, IT cannot get my work laptop to boot. They even tried Bart's PE to fix it. The only solution now is format c: and fdisk. I'm devastated.

Was this a Revo issue? Again, I don't know. I can tell you this. I won't be using Revo on my work computer again. I don't think Revo and PGP go well together.

Most full disk encryption programs including PGP have issues. Every time I have used something like this I have had to turn to backups during a reinstall. BitLocker on Win7 should be safer I would hope. Revo may have caused your issue but I expect it was some shared resource tied to PGP that got removed. Full disk encryption at the hardware level is the only type I have used that I did not have issues with. You can buy some models now with this built in and it works much nicer. Plus no slow downs due the the CPU having to decrypt large files.

For what it is worth it probably could have been resurrected with many days of work but in the end a good backup is the only way to go. An image backup is even better. For an image backup I would recommend an external hard drive not a flash drive.

Now back to topic.

Revo seems to work ok as long as you pay attention to what it wants to remove. The pay for version has some nice improvements (64 bit among them) though unless you pick it up when they are offering a special it is not worth it. I use it sometimes but then I always look for the right tool and sometimes it just does not fit what I need.

Leland