What is the proper way to annihilate a huge software program?

I mean, ANNIHILATE, destroy COMPLETELY, rid all traces of it from my system.
The program in question is MSOffice 2002--I would like to install MSOffice 2003.

Here's what I think would work:

Delete from the Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel
Delete corresponding directories in Program Files
Run CCleaner > Issues

Will this work?
Any recommendations?

 

Might want to defrag the hard drive.

 

Just out of curiosity, why do you want to annihilate it? Why not just do the upgrade?

Be careful, cleaning out the registry, especially registry keys having to do with MS software. That can get real ugly real quick.

 

Thats what i do when uninstalling software.

 

If you want to be more thorough, I would modify your original suggestion to:

Run the program's unistall program (usually in it's Program files folder on the start menu or maybe as "unwise.exe" or something similar in it's main directory, or if not found, delete from the Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel.
Delete corresponding directories in Program Files. (Optionally search for other folders on the HD related to it - "Common files" "Documents and Settings", etc.
Run CCleaner > Issues
Run another registry scanner. I like RegCleaner or RegSupreme, but anyway. . . If you feel bold, manually search the registry for leftover traces.

 

cashmonee, I'm suspicious that MS Office is one of those programs that don't upgrade... I wouldn't want to have both 2002 and 2003 running and taking up space on my notebook at the same time.

ZaZ, thanks, this will be the last major program I'll install.

Tiger Heli, why do you and many others always recommend several of these registry programs? Isn't there one that's widely considered the best/better than the rest of them? Or do you actively use both?

Thanks, guys!

P.S., for some reason, I can't search my system anymore... Would this have anything to do with me disabling disk indexing in services.msc?

 

I suspect it WILL upgrade. If you have space, you might be better off trying to install 2K3 and then worrying about removing 2K2 if it is still an issue.

Good question. I actively use CCleaner and RegSupreme. I find that each finds some entries that the other one misses. In the optimization thread, I mentioned RegScrubXP, but found that RegSupreme does a better job than it does, IMHO. RegCleaner is the (older) freeware version of RegSupreme, and I only mentioned it in case people wanted a freeware solution.

Come to think of it, I do this with many of my computer programs - Anti-Virus I only run AVG Free, but Anti-Spyware I imunnize with Spybot S&D, run Windows Defender actively, and do monthly scans with both Spybot and Ad-Aware.

Unlikely - I always disable disk indexing and search has always still worked. It just makes searches take longer without it enabled.

 

Just uninstall, (and delete leftover files in Program files, if you want to be neat) then install the new version, should work fine. Btw, it makes no difference whether you uninstall using add/remove programs, or the one in its folder on the start menu. They do the same thing.

 

Thanks for your help, everyone!
I guess I should have tried installing before I asked.
I just like to make sure everything goes perfectly--that's the way I am.

Everything upgraded fine.