OT: Brief help with this computer problem?

[onomastikon]

Hello folks, long time no hear -- I've been lurking now for quite some time, but am still enjoying Shrapnel et al. quite a bit.

I hope you will permit me a question, and I thank you in advance; I remember all of you, or most of you, as very computer-savvy people, and I am in a bit of a jam. I DLed and installed the HOMMV demo some time ago -- and what a surprise, I disliked it greatly. I think I tried it for about 20 minutes, then uninstalled. Got rid of the original DL (it was huge) and shortcuts.
However, I see now that in my "System" --> "Software" window (I run a German version of WinXP, SP2, so maybe it is called something different?), it is still there, still hogging up around 700MB. Sadly, when I click on it and hit "remove", it tells me that it is successfully removed, yet it isnt, it is still there.

This is alarming me. Can I do anything to rid it from my computer? Am I missing something?

Thank you much!!

[Dedas]

It seems this guy has the same problem as you:
Post 24
http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=63661

Meaning you have to uninstall it manually.

However I found this patch that addresses one uninstall issue with the demo. But it doesn't mention your exact problem. You could try it though as they could be related:

http://www.fileshack.com/file.x/1071...ord+Demo+Patch

Good luck!

[onomastikon]

THank you much, dedas.
I should have posted this beforehand, but I'll say now that before I posted here, I googled "uninstall HOMMV Demo" and quite a few variants thereof, I found that link to which you linked, as well as 2 or three others, yet no solution. That gent did not get his issue solved.

Therefore, I dont know what you mean by "uninstall manually", unless it is sometihng other than going into "System" / "Software" and hitting "remove", since I did that and it doesnt work.

I will check out that patch you mention, but wouldnt that mean that I need to DL that huge demo again and actually re-install it??
thanks tons!

[Jazzepi]

Uninstalling the program manually would involve doing this.

Go to C:\program files\ and find the directory for the installation of HOMM5. There may be an uninstall.exe in there you can run. If that doesn't work, then you need to simply delete the entire directory containing the game.

Sometimes the path for the game folder may look like

C:\program files\<company name>\<game name>\

instead of

C:\program files\<game name>\

If you chose a custom install path, you'll need to remember what it was and use that instead. I'm assuming you just used the default, though.

Jazzepi

[onomastikon]

Thank you.

I can find the folder (under /ubisoft) without a problem, there is no setup or uninstall icon there, only a game.exe.

I can click on the folder and hit "delete" -- but I thought that uninstallation is a much different process, involving registry data and all of that? If I simply hit "delete", wont I be leaving the program on my computer, wont it still be in my "software" properties without hope of me ever getting rid of it?

Thank you very much, oh computer-smart people

[Dedas]

If you want to delete the information from the registry do this:
1. Press "Start"
2. Click "Run"
3. Type "regedit" and press enter. The registry should reveal itself to you.
4. Press F3.
5. Type Ubisoft and press enter.
6. You should be presented with a folder named Ubisoft. If not press F3 again.
7. Under the Ubisoft folder you should find a subfolder named Homm5 or the like.
7. Delete the Homm5 folder.

You are done. Ubisoft do not write much more to the registry than this. At least not to my experience.

There are also programs that could do this (delete unused registry entries) but this is how you do it manually.

[Jazzepi]

I generally advise people to avoid editing the registry unless they feel extremely comfortable doing so. Whatever cruft is leftover from the game not being properly uninstalled is not worth the risk of making your computer unbootable by accidentally deleting the wrong thing in the registry.

Getting rid of the game directory frees up 99.9% of what the computer installs as far as the space a program takes up on your hard drive. You should also check your MY DOCUMENTS folder. Some of the newer games use that as a place to store your saved games and some customization files. Personally I think this is a terrible practice to spread a program's install over more and more places.

Jazzepi

[onomastikon]

Thanks so much people.
I will leave the registry alone then. I dont feel comfortable with that, especially not after the warning. I merely asked because I thought that is what an "uninstall" program should be doing -- my (poor, faulty) understanding of these things was that the "folder" in which the program files are stored is merely there as a base from which the program's "install shield" puts all the things it needs into place, and God only knows where those places are, so that the "uninstall" program goes and finds them and removes them. By clicking start -> config -> system -> software and checking out that list, I see HommV demo there, despite having used the uninstall program a year ago and having clicked "remove" in that list a couple of times, hence I figured something "tricky" must be done. But if you say that deleting the folder in the c:/programme directory will do the job, I am relieved.
Leaving entries in the registry is not harmful?
THANK YOU!!

[Endoperez]

Leaving entries in the registry is not dangerous, but it will clutter the registry, and if you always just remove the programs' directories knowing what you have and what you removed will become quite difficult.

[onomastikon]

Endoperez said:
Leaving entries in the registry is not dangerous, but it will clutter the registry, and if you always just remove the programs' directories knowing what you have and what you removed will become quite difficult.

So you recommend that I delete the folder only just this one time, but not make it a general practice, or do you recommend that I try that regedit program?
thank you