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Uninstalling programs on mac?

P

Peter Griffin

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 10, 2005
219
0
I've just switched over from XP and have been problems with uninstalling programs off the Mac (osx tiger). In XP there would normally be a control panel which would show a list of programs on your computer which you could either modify or uninstall. There doesn't appear to be one in mac osx so I decided to drag the file from the applications folder to the trash. It appeared as though everything was fine until I ran a search in spotlight to still find some of the files still on my computer. I was uninstalling Limewire if this helps. I would like to rid my computer of everything associated to this program.

What is the proper way to uninstall programs?

Another question I have is about the dmg files which appear on the desktop. Whenever I double click these, a hard drive like icon appears. I then go in there and drag the icon of the program onto my applications folder. After that I unmount and delete everything (dmg file and hard drive like icon) off the desktop. Is this fine?

Anyway thanks for reading
 
Peter Griffin said:
What is the proper way to uninstall programs?
Click to expand...
If a program came with an installer, then it might have come with an uninstaller, too. If so use that. In most cases it just a matter of dragging the application to Trash, though. Easy. If preference files bugs you, just use spotlight to find them and trash them, too...

Tip: This question has bee answered more than once, last time a similar question came up was about an hour ago, here, so the next time you have a question, search or browse a little to se if it hasn't been answered already... ;)

Peter Griffin said:
Another question I have is about the dmg files which appear on the desktop. Whenever I double click these, a hard drive like icon appears. I then go in there and drag the icon of the program onto my applications folder. After that I unmount and delete everything (dmg file and hard drive like icon) off the desktop. Is this fine?
Click to expand...
Perfect, couldn't have put it better myself... :)
 
Thanks for the help. Just coming from windows, I expected it to be more than just dragging icons.
 
Common misconception... ;)

Welcome to the easy side of computing. Most will be the same, but something might seem a bit strange at first. Only advice: Don't fight it, i.e. don't try to do things the Windows way, just learn to use your Mac the way it's intended, even if you find a couple of things frustrating at first. It gets better. :)
 
Question about uninstalling a program

Hi,

I registered as a user for this forum 10 minutes ago so I am not sure where I should post this question. Like Peter, I am having trouble uninstalling a program. Last night, in a panic after I received a message that there was malware on my computer (I was running parallel desktop on my Mac but have since deleted it with no problem), I downloaded a program called Avast Anti-virus Mac Edition. In my estimation, this program is not as good as I had hoped so I have been trying to uninstall it. However, every time I try to drag it to the garbage, I get a message that says the program is running. I have tried everything (with my limited skills) but I can't figure out how to close the program (ordinarily I would just click the red X but there isn't one) so that it can be uninstalled. Can anyone offer this college professor some advice? I would greatly appreciate it.

Signed,

Confused and Frustrated
 
daedulus1984 said:
Hi,

I registered as a user for this forum 10 minutes ago so I am not sure where I should post this question. Like Peter, I am having trouble uninstalling a program. Last night, in a panic after I received a message that there was malware on my computer (I was running parallel desktop on my Mac but have since deleted it with no problem), I downloaded a program called Avast Anti-virus Mac Edition. In my estimation, this program is not as good as I had hoped so I have been trying to uninstall it. However, every time I try to drag it to the garbage, I get a message that says the program is running. I have tried everything (with my limited skills) but I can't figure out how to close the program (ordinarily I would just click the red X but there isn't one) so that it can be uninstalled. Can anyone offer this college professor some advice? I would greatly appreciate it.

Signed,

Confused and Frustrated
Click to expand...

Try Finder>applications>utilities>activity monitor. Find the program your looking for, click on it, and press force quit.
 
Here is what I do.

1. Small, self contained Applications (programs).

This is simple and has been described above. Just drag the application from the applications folder into the dock. If you like you can delete any other information that might be stored in your home folder.

2. Large Applications

For things like Photoshop I use an application like AppZapper or AppCleaner. These delete pretty much everything that was installed by the original application installer.
 
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