Mediaboss Marketing

Belarc Advisor's complete inventory of your system helps you spot potentially unwanted programs that CCleaner, Revo Uninstaller, and Windows 8.1's own uninstaller don't list.

Belarc Advisor's system inventory points to the location of unwanted programs that uninstallers miss.

Software happens...sometimes more often than we intend.

Distributors of free apps are adept at getting us downloaders to agree to including special offers along with the programs we mean to install. Often the option to add the extra software is preselected, so we have to uncheck a box to prevent the unsolicited programs from hitching a ride.

Potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) can be a challenge to uninstall. I recently found myself with some PUPs that eluded the Windows 8.1 uninstaller as well as two popular utilities: Piriform's CCleaner and Revo Uninstaller. Fortunately, the system inventory created by Belarc Advisor (free for non-commercial use) pointed to the sticky PUPs.

Search Event Viewer logs for software installations When you suspect you may have inadvertently downloaded more software than you intended, you can check Windows' Event Viewer logs for a chronology of your software installations. In Windows 8.1, open Event Viewer by pressing the Windows key and X then V.

In Event Viewer, choose Windows Logs > Application in the left pane. Then select Find in the right pane, type "msiinstaller", and press Enter. The most-recent installation is highlighted in the top window, and its details are shown in the bottom window.

Search Windows' Event Viewer logs for the most-recent software installations on your system.

You can scroll through the Event Viewer logs by double-clicking one and then using the up and down arrows on the right side of the dialog to move between entries.

Inadvertent downloads may elude the Event Viewer logs, however. In my case, only the program I intended to install was shown in Event Viewer's logs. I had downloaded a backup program and neglected to uncheck the options for a search program and another unrelated backup program. The logs recorded only the installation of the first backup program and did not refer to either of the other programs.

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Free utility finds unwanted programs uninstallers miss