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From: tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: How to clean WIN.INI and WINDOWS directory?
Message-ID: <51875437@bfmny0.BFM.COM>
Date: 29 Apr 91 06:59:56 GMT
Article-I.D.: bfmny0.51875437
References: <67620009@hpcupt1.cup.hp.com>
Reply-To: tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff)
Lines: 31

In article <67620009@hpcupt1.cup.hp.com> swh@hpcupt1.cup.hp.com (Steve Harrold) writes:
>Is there a procedure or tool documented/offered somewhere that will cleanup
>my WIN.INI file and WINDOWS directory?

Sure, the DEL command.  :-)

>Every utility and application insists on cluttering up these locations with
>their own stuff.  It's next to impossible to un-install them later.  

I don't know why it's supposed to be difficult to clean a paragraph out
of WIN.INI.  They're generally very self explanatory.  

As for cleaning app files out of \WINDOWS, better to ask why you
installed them there in the first place.  There is generally no reason
to do so.  Anywhere in your PATH will do the trick.

>                                                                     And
>even if you keep the utility/app, you can never know for sure what belongs
>to Windows and what belongs to the app.

If you keep the ZIP files around, there are utilities that know how to
look for extracted files and delete them.

>This is very reminiscent of the old days when every program insisted on
>polluting the root directory instead of using a private directory.

Quite so, and usually for the same reason: user laziness.

-- 
Show me a sane man and I will    ///O\   Tom Neff
cure him for you. -- Carl Jung   \\\O/   tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM