Zsoft Uninstaller is an uninstall utility that provides additional functionality which is not available in the Windows’ Add/Remove control panel, including much faster uninstalls.
the ability to find and remove uninstalled programs that somehow remained in the registry, and the ability to monitor an installation and revert back to the pre-installation state afterwards.
You can use Zsoft Uninstaller as a replacement for Windows’ add/remove. Here’s what you need to know about this program:
- Zsoft Uninstaller removes programs completely, including the install folder and registry entries.
- It will allow you to delete obsolete entries that are not actually there but are still on the add/remove list.
- Zsoft Uninstaller provides the option to ‘analyze’ an installion, i.e. take a snapshot of the system/registry before and after an installion and compare the two. This allows you to choose to ‘revert’ the changes completely, which might be a good option if you are installing a program that you feel may be dubious and suspect that it might be installing undesirable software on your machine.
- A simple yet very useful features is the ‘search’ box; if a program is listed as “XYZ software flash downloader” and you can’t seem to find it, just type in ‘flash’ in the search box and all programs with that in the word will appear, allowing you to zoom in on it and uninstall it (see screenshot for an example). This is a brilliant functionality when, like me, you have a huge glut of installed titles.
- Zsoft Uninstaller will allow you to ‘hide’ entries from the program list so they do not appear there. This is useful when you know that you will not be uninstalling certain titles and would like to remove these from view.
- Similar to the point above, the program provides an option to hide all Microsoft Windows updates from the list.
- The program will also filter the program list by ‘dead links’ and so-called ‘crapware’. I assume dead links are uninstall entries that do not point to anything, but I’m not sure what crapware is exactly. Either way it didn’t find any of these on my machine so I cannot speak to these.
- It also allows you to export your list of installed programs into a text file.
I’ve had Zsoft Uninstaller on my machine for a while now and I’m finding it extremely useful. Its most definitely my favorite freeware uninstaller program, and I tried a few. Having said this here’s my wishlist for this program:
- The ability to view the list of programs by their icons, rather than in a list. This will make the user experience better by leaps and bounds. This program really could use some color on screen.
- The ability to view programs that you have ‘hidden’ from the software list by clicking a tab, Firefox style. Zsoft Uninstaller already allows you to view ‘analyzed’ programs on a seperate tab so its a bit strange that the user-defined ‘hidden’ software list isn’t up there as well.
- I’m not sure if this is possible, as I haven’t seen it in commercial uninstall programs either, but it would be great to have a column with the install date for each program, allowing you to sort and and view the programs you installed last.
All in all I recommend this program wholeheartedly.
Version tested: 2.3.3
Go to the program download page for the latest version. The developer’s home page.
