AOl has ridden a wave of notoriety for "boxing in" its customers and plying them with endless waves of complimentary software that is supposed to improve the browsing experience, but more often than not can get in the way and cause trouble with what you're trying to do.
Some people have even reported trouble actually getting AOL to uninstall in the first place!
So here's a brief look at how you can ensure you get the software removed completely, starting with the instructions as laid out by AOL.
Close down all of your AOL software programs and ensure that they're not running in the background.
Go to Start, followed by Settings, followed by Control Panel. Or if you're using Vista, just go to Start and then Control Panel.
Navigate to the tab for Add/Remove Programs, and then Programs and Features. This will bring up a list of the various programs and apps that you've got installed on your version of Windows - along with the option to remove them individually. Please note that it's MUCH better to use the Add/Remove facility as opposed to a built in uninstaller that might be present.
Windows does a better job of taking out the trash when you use its built in functionality rather than a third party uninstaller which will invariably leave traces of its remnant files on the system.
Select all AOL software from your Add/Remove list and remove it. The programs will be binned and deleted, with most of the references (but not all, which is a part of the frustration with AOL).
You should save and apply your changes and reboot the system. This will give Windows a chance to remove the final references when it runs through and reboots. Now you should find that your AOL software suite is no more. That can be seen as a brilliant success for some, but not quite the case for others.
The problem with uninstalling AOL is that the program leaves behind a huge and totally unacceptable number of registry entries. These snippets of data rest on the core Windows file library and sit unused. They shouldn't do any harm in theory, but if you try to install another similar application, you can run in to some rather annoying memory problems. Conflicts are the problem, when the computer thinks that memory is free but it actually isn't.
You can use Add-Remove Pro, a third party solution, to ensure that not only do you remove all application data, but you get rid of the spare registry parts too. This will remove AOL software once and for all, thus completing the uninstallation process.
You can also purchase a registry fixing solution to do the hard clean-up work for you. There are some that offer free repairing facilities, but expect to pay to get rid of every error that AOL leaves behind. They're notoriously buggy when it comes to giving the user the ability to get rid of their software! With a clean registry, you can be sure that AOL's archived data is swept off the system once and for all.
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