thanks for the suggestion, but I'm afraid I've tried that before with other programs, and weerdly, all it does is create a second entry in the Add/remove programs list.

I actually have one example of a program with about 4 entries, even though it's only on my computer once, because i made a minor bodge of installing a couple of components a few times until I got it right.

Also, strangely, there are programs that don't seem to show up on the Add/remove list for some weerd reason.

Both Win Tads (the interactive fiction game interpreter), and Bg Hearts don't seem to have entries at all, which is imho very strage.

Add/remove programs shows things that are registered with Windows. On my system for example GMud doesn't register itself so doesn't show up. Using the uninstall option, or remove in add/remove, clears out all this.

You can manually remove a lot of the info by going to run and typing "regedit" to enter the registry editor. However you should be *very* careful what you delete in here since you can screw up software by deleting the wrong thing. Explore the tree to find the branch for the game in particular then delete it, but make sure you are only deleting the section for that game and not accidentally deleting entries for other games from the same source. All software should be within sections named for their creator if they follow convention.

And again, *be careful*. As long as you watch what you delete you should be safe, but if you do delete the wrong thing it could result in anything from one program from ceasing to work up to full scale windows failure. I stress though, this is only if you get things seriously wrong. For the most part it should be fairly obvious what you need to remove, and as long as you don't touch anything else you should be safe.

edit:
Lol, for the record I did not originally type screw driver. Never thought that would show on the swear filter *shrug*

thanks people. When I delete things, I'm afraid I have a habbit of deleting things perminantly, sinse If I want to delete something, i want to make certain it's gone, so no sending things to languish in the recycle bin for me.

that was a brilliant suggesiton about registry though Cx2, i was actually rather shocked about what i found lirking around down there that I previously thought I'd successfully managed to kill. I couldn't find Jim kitchen or Pong though ---- though I really don't suppose it matters too much anyway.

I also don't want to go rummaging around in the registry folder too much, sinse it seems that I might accidently cause blunt blunt instrument related mishaps to occur, Forum filters? lol!

Hey Dark/all
A nice program to try if your windows is not so "tidy" as you said, is called easy cleaner, and you can download it from:
http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniar … m#download
It can delete unnecesary items from the registry, you can delete items from  the add remove program list, from the startup (the registry), delete unused shortcuts, unnecessary shortcuts, and best of all, its accessible.
So, go ahead, and forget about unnecessary stuff.

I had a friend once whose brother somehow changed the name of the recycle bin on their computer to Plop. I don't know if he did that through the registry though since I'm not sure what it's called to begin with.

renaming shortcuts is something I'm always doing, especially when I create them myself. Generally though, I give things like short cuts very boring names that tell me what they go to.