Rating: 5 pick

Version tested: 1.30

Description: Revo Uninstaller is a combination Windows add/remove replacement, startup manager and hard drive cleaner. It provides the ability to scan uninstalled programs and delete residual files and registry keys, as well as a number of other functions such as unrecoverable deletion for individual files or even entire hard drives.

Although I very seldom am accused of under-rating a program, my review of version 1.10 does not do justice to subsequent releases of this program. The most important difference in this newer version 1.30 is the impressive post-uninstall scans and removal of leftover files, folders and registry entries.

This program is not just an uninstaller but a collection of the utilities/functions outlined in the description packaged a nice glitzy interface. Here are some notes on the different parts of this program:

The Uninstaller:

• Uninstallation: Revo runs the uninstall executables provided with the programs but performs pre and post-uninstallation scans to identify residual files/folders and registry entries. It presents a list of these and prompts the user to manually check elements that the user wants to delete. In more than 90% of cases you will want to delete everything that it finds, however I would recommend that you always look at these just in case and err on the side of caution. For example, when uninstalling the DivX player, Revo identified a handful of files and registry entries that were not related to the player but to the DivX codec itself. What’s really cool is that Revo provides a lot of info on the elements it finds that makes deciding on whether to delete them or not a fairly simple undertaking.
• Search box: want to quickly find and uninstall a program? Just enter its name (or a few letters of its name) into the search box.
• “Hunter Mode”: is a little drop area that hovers over your desktop. You can drag and drop any shortcut to the Hunter Mode icon and immediately perform a number of functions, including uninstalling the program, stopping it from starting with Windows, kill its process, view its properties, or (my favorite) jump to its’ installation folder. Hunter Mode does not provide uninstallation functionality to programs without uninstallers.
• Views: Can show all the Windows add/remove program entries in icon, list, and details views. The icon view looks cool while the details view provides columns with miscellaneous information such as size, version, installation date, and others. You can sort these in order to identify the latest installs or a ranking of the largest programs that you might want to consider uninstalling (although not all programs have this info populated). You can exclude system updates and/or system components from being shown.
• Context menu functions: right click on any program entry inside the Revo interface and a context menu appears with a number of options (see screenshot). These include uninstalling entry, removal of entry from the list (useful when a program is uninstalled but its add/remove entry persists), opening the program’s installation directory on your hard disk, and opening the Windows registry editor right at the program’s registry entry. Other ’informational’ options include searching Google for the program’s or developer’s names, and opening program-related informational links on the internet.

The Autorun Manager: what I like about this one is that, like Starter (my favorite startup manager) it allows you to uncheck/disable startup entries to and will preserve them to allow re-check them later (as opposed to startup managers that force you to hunt all over your hard drive to re-instate something). Right click on an entry to access a number of options such as copying the folder path, deleting an entry, opening containing folder, killing or running the process, and a number of quick relevant informational internet searches.

Windows Tools: Revo has a section that contains a number of Windows functions such as system restore, system diagnostic, defrag, security center, and others.

Disk Cleaning functions: similar to programs such as CCleaner; here’s a summary of these:

• Junk files cleaner: unfortunately this function did not work on the version I tested. In theory it will find and delete temp and junk files of various kinds.
• Browser cleaner: cleans history of visited sites, address bar history, temporary internet files, cookies, and index.dat files. Supports IE, Firefox, Opera, and Netscape.
• MS Office cleaner: cleans recent documents history for all MS Office applications.
• Windows cleaner: cleans recent documents history for a number of Windows programs/elements, such as find file history, clipboard, MS paint, recycle bin, and others.
• Evidence remover: use this to make sure to remove any traces of deleted files from your hard drives and ensure that all deleted files are unrecoverable.
• Unrecoverable delete: unrecoverable file and/or folder delete similar to ’evidence remover’ above. Can do batch processing.

My Wish list (or how this program can be even better): The abiliry to run all or some of the above hard drive cleaning functions collectively (instead of having to run each separately as is the case at the moment).

The verdict: this program has a very nice look and feel (I especially like the context menu commands). It can make a significant difference in delivering a cleaner system, especially of you install and uninstall a lot of software. Because it contains so many utilities rolled into one, the question is whether you prefer to have all of the different functions that this program provides in a centralized location or you prefer using individual programs for each function. It is well designed and overall feels very solid. Definitely my favorite freeware uninstaller utility.

Compatibility: Windows 2000, 2003, XP, Vista.

Go to the download page to get the latest version (approx 1.2 megs). Also visit the program home page.