Uninstalr Changelog

What's new in Uninstalr 2.4

May 2, 2024

Improvement: Greatly improved the program’s efficiency in uninstalling software.
Improvement: The program can now detect the icon of installed apps better.
Improvement: Opening the Right Click > Fix Information now has a progress indicator.
Improvement: Minor user interface improvements.
Improvement: If you uninstalled something without restarting your computer, Uninstalr would previously reload the list of installed software, suggest you to restart the computer and then close. Now it will just suggest you to restart the computer and then close, without wasting time in reloading the list of installed apps.
Fix: Uninstalling specific apps could make Uninstalr get stuck and never complete the uninstallation process.
Fix: Uninstalling anything while specific third party antivirus programs were running could cause the system to restart without anything being uninstalled.
Fix: The program can report the installation size of specific apps incorrectly, with an installation size that is larger than the actual number.
Fix: The Settings view can display some of its texts clipped.
Fix: The program could display "PowerShell disabled" warning message even if PowerShell was properly working in the system.
Fix: The program could crash with "Out of Memory" after clicking the first uninstall button.
Fix: Automatic system restart might sometimes fail with Windows asking the user to confirm the restart because some app is still running.
Fix: The "Sort by age" feature sometimes failed to sort the list by installation age.
Fix: The "Tip: Uninstalr is still performing some final parts of the analysis, that is why these numbers might still update." text would never go away, even after all the background update tasks completed.
Fix: Opening the Right Click menu in the Settings view incorrectly included the Select By Publisher menus.
Fix: Selecting Right Click > Regenerate List would start the list refresh with the progress bar at 90% and it would reset to zero only after a few seconds.
Fix: Entering "C:" to the Ignore Paths feature in Settings caused all the paths from the C drive to be correctly ignored by Uninstalr, but at the same time, the Ignore Paths list on Settings would show up empty the next time the program started.

New in Uninstalr 2.3 (Apr 4, 2024)

Improvement: Greatly improved the program’s efficiency in uninstalling apps.
Improvement: Greatly improved the accuracy of detecting portable apps from the system.
Improvement: The analysis of installed apps will now work faster in systems with 200+ installed apps.
Improvement: The program now warns the user in case Microsoft PowerShell is missing or disabled in the system. Uninstalr can be used in such cases, but its performance is not optimal and now users is made aware of this.
Improvement: The program now warns the user in case Microsoft OneDrive seems to be syncing data from the system. This can cause OneDrive restoring an app that Uninstalr just uninstalled, making it look like Uninstalr failed to uninstall it.
Improvement: The program now performs checks to confirm it has full access to modify the system before starting to uninstall anything. If there is no full access, the uninstallation can still be started but the uninstallation performance will not be optimal and user is informed about this.
Improvement: The program now instructs user to choose "no" in case there is a popup during the uninstallation process asking whether the user wants to restart the computer.
Improvement: After the program has started, it will still continue to perform certain analysis tasks on the background until they are all completed. During this process, the numbers relating to installed software and the number of detected paths will update on the user interface. Such changing numbers within the user interface could seem a bit odd, that is why the user interface now contains a message explaining this to the user.
Improvement: The program can now detect more anti-virus and other system security related software and can warn user if they are about to uninstall such software with Uninstalr. This type of software is typically protected against automatic uninstallation and therefore uninstallation with Uninstalr will probably fail. Uninstallation of anti-virus or other security related software should only be done by following the tools and instructions of the publishers of such software, never with any third party tools.
Improvement: Detecting leftovers of old apps is never 100% accurate. Therefore, Uninstalr will now display an additional warning to ensure user knows what they are doing, if they are attempting to remove any app that Uninstalr is saying looks like a leftover and the wording in general has been changed from "Leftover" to "Possible leftover" to highlight this further.
Improvement: The program now reports when it is waiting for the System Restore Point of being created. Since this process is up to Windows and can take many minutes, it’s better for the UI to tell the user that this is what is happening.
Improvement: Added an option to disable the use of automatically running script files to finalize the uninstallation.
Improvement: You can now choose to use the standard Windows buttons within the program. This can be adjusted within the Settings view.
Improvement: In the Right Click > Fix Information view, the Jump To Software feature is now only visible if there are three or more items on the list.
Improvement: Improved the accuracy of "You are about to uninstall app1 and not app2 and these two apps seem to be related, are you sure?" warning so it won’t be displayed on apps which are not similar in nature. That being said, there is no problem of showing the warning too often, so it’s still calibrated to rather show the warning too often than too rarely.
Improvement: The program can now be better used in smaller display sizes and screen resolutions. If there is not enough space on the screen, the program will simply hide non-critical user interface elements.
Improvement: The app type, filter and sort menus now look better.
Improvement: Added options to select and unselect apps by their app type and publisher.
Improvement: Added a new feature called Ignore Paths to the Settings. This feature allows you to define any file system or registry paths that you don’t want Uninstlar to analyze or even touch. This can be used as one more layer of protection to ensure no important files are ever removed when uninstalling apps with Uninstalr.
Improvement: Improved compatibility with Steam platform and Steam games. For example, Uninstalr is now better in detecting the size of installed Steam games.
Fix: Selecting an app and using the Right Click > Show Data did not show all the paths of the app. Only using the Uninstall option would show all the paths.
Fix: The user interface in the Settings view could look pretty bad on some screen resolutions and/or app window sizes. Texts could be partially overlapping and so on.
Fix: The program was not able to detect the installation of Windows Hardware Lab Kit software, as well as some other similar apps.
Fix: The program was not able to detect the installation of some Chinese software, such as a program called 360安全卫士
Fix: The program was not always able to detect app called WhyNotWin11, or it was incorrectly listed as "WhyNotWin"
Fix: The program could display Access Violation or Out Of Memory error on some systems. This problem might not be fully fixed, that is, it might still occur on some systems, but it should be at least partially fixed. The reason for this vague wording is that I have been unable to reproduce the problem in any test system, which means it’s a very rare issue, only happening on very specific systems and therefore, fixing it has also been very challenging.
Fix: Changing the font size setting of the program didn’t work very well. The preview was poor and the setting was not always even saved properly. It’s still not perfect, but it’s much better.
Fix: Writing something to the Hide filter will randomly move the focus to the Search filter, which makes using the Hide filter very annoying. Fix: Starting to type something while on the main view adds that text to the Search filter input. This was working, but starting to type could sometimes randomly add the typed letter as upper case.
Fix: The program was not able to fully uninstall some builtin Windows apps, such as the Weather app.
Fix: The selection logic was confusing. If you used a filter to show only specific apps, then did Select All, also the currently hidden apps were selected, which could be confusing. Now the Select All and Select Inverse operations only apply to apps visible on the list of apps. Select None applies to all apps, though. Just in case.
Fix: There could be a rather long, up to a few seconds delay after clicking the first Uninstall button before anything happened on the screen.
Fix: When the uninstallation started, the progress screen could display "Uninstalling: " without any other information, such as the name of the app currently being uninstalled. This was a cosmetic issue, but could cause confusion.
Fix: It was possible for the app type or filter menus to remain visible when the list of installed apps was being regenerated.
Known Issues:
1) The program is not fully compatible with screen reader software.
2) Changing the program’s font size from its Settings doesn't work as well as it should. It’s much better in this version than in 2.2, but it's still not good enough.
3) Opening the Right Click > Fix Information can have a few second delay. This should have a progress indication.
4) Automatic system restart might sometimes fail with Windows asking the user to confirm the restart because some app is still running.

New in Uninstalr 2.2 (Mar 8, 2024)

Improvement: Greatly improved the programâs ability to detect portable apps.
Improvement: The scan and analysis of installed apps is now a lot faster, especially in
systems with a lot of installed apps. For example, in one test systems with over 500
installed apps, the previous version 2.1 takes 167 seconds to analyze the installed apps
and the new version 2.2 takes only 125 seconds.
Improvement: Added an option to alter the way how multiple apps can be selected from the
list. The alternative method works based on Ctrl+Click.
Improvement: Added an option to disable all additional warnings and confirmations about
uninstalling apps. If you know what you are doing, you no longer need to see any of those
warning messages.
Improvement: The program is now better in detecting the installed version of apps.
Improvement: The program can now find the icon of installed apps better.
Improvement: The installed apps list now show better tooltips with more information.
Improvement: Overall improvements to the accuracy of detecting data from the installed
apps.
Fix: The program can fail to detect the installation of some programs, for example
PopTrayU.
Fix: If attempting to uninstall a Microsoft app, such as Office, the additional warning
message would list every other Microsoft app from the system and warned you that
uninstalling one could affect the rest.
Fix: Fixed a few typos from the English user interface.
Fix: Changing the sorting of the installed apps list sometimes failed to work, especially
if you tried to sort it by changing the sort setting very rapidly.
Fix: The bottom of the Windows desktop can show a partially visible minimized window
during uninstalling some software.
Fix: Changing the UI font size from Settings didnât update the UI while the setting was
adjusted, and changing the setting but then closing the settings view without saving still
applied the new font setting.
Known issues: The default installed software scan is slow in cases of a lot of installed
software. For example, if you have over 200 installed software, the default installed
software scan is probably going to take a few minutes. In such case, you can change the
scan setting from the Settings view for the program to start faster.
Known issues: The program doesnât fully support screen readers.

New in Uninstalr 2.1 (Feb 22, 2024)

Improvement: The program can now better detect portable apps stored in the system.
Improvement: Greatly improved the analysis and detection of Steam games. For example, sometimes a Steam game installation would show only a few KB installation size, when the actual size was much higher.
Improvement: The program can now better handle files stored in the user’s Documents folders. Sometimes this folder contains only documents, as the name suggests, but sometimes installed apps also add their files in there.
Improvement: Comes with updated Swedish translation. If you want to improve the translation of the program in your language, please download this file: https://jv16powertools.com/downloads/TranslationHelper.zip, open the translation file of your language with any text editor such as Notepad++, locate the [custom_strings_uninstaller] section and edit any poorly translated texts from there. After you are done, you can send the updated file to me via https://uninstalr.com/TranslationsSupport and it will be included to the next released version of the program.
Fix: The program fails to detect the installation of certain Steam games, for example, Goose Goose Duck.
Fix: The program can list some Steam games twice, such as Quake Champions.
Fix: Ctr-clicking Show App Types > Platform: Steam would also check the Chocolatey App type, and vice versa.
Fix: The program can sometimes list specific type of installed software more than one time, for example, Backup4All. Note: Not all duplicate listings of installed apps are incorrect. For example, if you install Skype from Microsoft Store and then from their website as a standalone app installer, you will end up with two instances of Skype installed, and listing them twice is correct and expected with Uninstalr.
Known issues: The default installed software scan is slow in cases of a lot of installed software. For example, if you have over 200 installed software, the default installed software scan is probably going to take a few minutes. In such case, you can change the scan setting from the Settings view for the program to start faster.
Known issues: The program doesn’t fully support screen readers.

New in Uninstalr 2.0 (Feb 15, 2024)

New feature: Added improved searching, filtering and sorting options to the installed software list.
New feature: You can now choose the leftover scanning mode. For example, to use Uninstalr to only batch uninstall software by automating the running of each app's own uninstaller, but without any additional leftover data cleaning.
New feature: You can now choose the installed software analysis depth.
New feature: You can now skip the main analysis to quickly see the main program window, for example, if you just want to use the new software installation monitor.
New feature: Uninstalr can now detect and uninstall PortableApps.com apps.
New feature: Uninstalr will now attempt to create a System Restore Point before the uninstallation begins.
New feature: Uninstalr can now detect and fix incorrect information from the Windows installed apps list, such as incorrect installed app sizes.
Improvement: Greatly improved the accuracy of installed software, portable apps and leftover detection.
Improvement: The installed software scan is now faster on most systems. In systems with a lot of software, the scan can still be fairly slow.
Improvement: The program is now much better in detecting cases when user attempts to uninstall something that might be dangerous. In such case, an additional confirmation message is shown to the user.
Improvement: Starting to type anywhere within the main results view will now add these key presses to the search input box. Previously, the search input box had to be in focus for this to work.
Improvement: You can now start uninstallation by selecting an app from the list and hitting the DEL key from your keyboard.
Improvement: Pressing ESC can now be used to close elements within the program, for example, ESC will now clear any active search filter. If you want to close the program itself, a Shift+ESC press is required. This is to avoid accidentally closing the program while working with it without using mouse.
Improvement: The rows of the selected apps are now highlighted to make it more clear what is selected.
Improvement: The Show All Data view now also includes a search feature, allowing you to quickly see whether the list contains any paths matching your search term.
Improvement: Hitting the Home key from the keyboard now takes you back to the list of installed software.
Improvement: Starting the uninstallation will now better communicate to the user that the system will be restarted during the process, if that option is checked.
Fix: In some rare cases, the software could get confused with paths of software with similar names and also list such paths to be removed as well.
Fix: When uninstalling software, Uninstalr can fail to automatically close browser popup if you are using Edge browser.
Fix: The default sort order of the result list was quite random. Now the default sort is based on the software name, and it's also easy for the user to view the current sorting method and change it.
Fix: The Don't Show Builtin Windows apps filter could sometimes hide third party apps if their names sounded similar to builtin Windows apps. For example, if you have an app called Notepadify installed, it could have been incorrectly classified as a Builtin Windows app, because it sounds like Notepad.
Fix: Right Click menu's Settings option was visible also when the Settings view is already open.
Fix: Maximizing the program window could cause it to go over the Windows task bar.
Fix: The installation date can be different than what is shown in Windows Settings > Installed Apps.
Known issues: The default installed software scan is slow in cases of a lot of installed software. For example, if you have over 200 installed software, the default installed software scan is probably going to take a few minutes. In such case, you can change the scan setting from the Settings view for the program to start faster.
Known issues: The program doesn't fully support screen readers.

New in Uninstalr 1.1 (Aug 3, 2023)

Improvement: Added Uninstall to the Right Click menu, and you can now uninstall a single app by simply performing Right Click > Uninstall with it.
Improvement: Microsoft Store apps are now detected better. Previously their name or publisher data could be partially incorrect or missing.
Improvement: Added an option to the Settings page for user to choose the level of leftover data scanning. With this setting, it’s now possible to use Uninstalr to only run and automate the uninstallers of the apps that are being removed and without any additional leftover data removal.
Improvement: Portable app and leftover app detection is now more accurate.
Improvement: The distinction between Show All Data and Uninstall views is now better. The Show All Data view no longer displays the Uninstall button, either.
Improvement: The program now uses less RAM to operate. In some systems, the program might fail to start because of Out Of Memory error. This issue is not yet fully fixed, but it should now occur be even more rare.
Improvement: The Uninstallation data view now shows a tip explaining that the view might contain non-existing paths. This is done, because sometimes running an app’s uninstaller actually creates new data to the system. By listing non-existing paths, these paths will also be removed during the uninstallation.
Improvement: The installed software analysis should now work faster on most systems.
Fix: Changing the user interface language and then clicking Save Settings doesn’t always work. That is, the newly changed language setting is not saved.
Fix: In some cases, uninstalling any app could cause Windows to display Blue Screen of Death error message and reboot. This was entirely a cosmetic issue, there was no data loss or damage to the system.
Fix: The program assumes that Windows PowerShell is installed in the system and available. If it’s not, an error message was shown in such systems. This is now fixed and the program no longer assume that PowerShell is available.