Deleting Installed Plug Ins

reversecooper
reversecooper Member Posts: 3 Newcomer

Hi all.

I bought Komplete a couple of years ago and installed most things on my external hard drive. My PC keeps getting completely full, and listing some of my NI plug ins as installed despite me having now uninstalled every part of them from my PC (or so I assume). They are showing as uninstalled on Native Access, but still show up (see attachment) as installed on my C drive. I've trimmed everything from my PC nearly but every week another 10 gb gets gobbled up somehow?! I'm not very tech savvy, but have googled this to no avail. Please help if you can. Cheers

Best Answer

  • Sunborn
    Sunborn NKS User Library Mod Posts: 3,550 mod
    Answer ✓

    I suggest you to use a good cleaner (I use CCleaner for over a decade, on a daily basis).

    You can not imagine the enormous amount of rubbish that Windows and many apps produce every day! Every single morning, is the first thing i do and the trash from previous day can vary from 80-90 megabyte to over 1 gigabyte, depending on the use.

    For me, such tools are my right hand, equality important as my antivirus.

Answers

  • Sunborn
    Sunborn NKS User Library Mod Posts: 3,550 mod
    edited April 7

    Hello

    Based on your screenshot it seems easy to uninstall them through Windows, if uninstalling through Native Access has no effect. Did you tried that? And if so, is the uninstall process completed successfully without errors?

    Anyway, if the standard uninstall methods aren't work correctly, please try the steps from this article:

    https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003509269-Fixing-Software-Update-Installation-Issues-Windows

    ____________________________________

  • reversecooper
    reversecooper Member Posts: 3 Newcomer

    Hi thanks for replying. I get the above error when I try using windows to uninstall. The reg tool didn't show the plugins i am unistalling weirdly

  • Sunborn
    Sunborn NKS User Library Mod Posts: 3,550 mod
    edited April 7

    This happened (based on your second screenshot) because you removed (intentionally or not) the hidden uninstall folders from "ProgramData" directory. This, complicates things a lot. The NI Uninstall RegTool was the last choice for a "normal" uninstall.

    Personally i use registry tools to fix such issues but i only recommend this to experts and power users.

    However it is not a difficult task. You do a registry search (with complete and correct product names) and then you delete all the finds (could be up to thousands of entries!). In the example below, i tested Middle East library (176 registry entries found):

    What is really important is to remove the 2 Uninstall entries in the bottom. In this way they will be removed from your programs list (possibly they are already removed, as they show up as uninstalled in Native Access) and you can re-install or update later, without issues. Otherwise you will get an error that it was "not possible to uninstall previous version".

    If you lack the necessary experience to deal with registry, the only thing you can do is to try to re-install them first, in order to be able to successfully remove it.

    However, i must point out that, if your only goal is the gain space in your disc, then, a simple manual deletion of those libraries will free a lot of gigabytes. The information of course will remain (that they are still installed).

    If you are unable to do any of the above, i suggest to contact NI Support, here:

    https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/signin?return_to=https%3A%2F%2Fsupport.native-instruments.com%2Fhc%2Fen-us%2Fcategories%2F360000053677-Native-Access

  • PoorFellow
    PoorFellow Moderator Posts: 6,416 mod
    edited April 7

    You can also try using the 'Forced Uninstall' function of Revo Uninstaller Pro trial. (Find the Forced uninstaller function in Revo Pro and then input name of plugin and let it search). Uninstallers should not be used casually but if used correctly and with care then Revo Pro should be a reliable tool

    You not being very tech savvy you need to make at least a manual restore point in Windows prior to using such software or even better take a full Windows backup.

  • reversecooper
    reversecooper Member Posts: 3 Newcomer

    Thanks to you both, Sunborn and PoorFellow for your help. I tried both and got some joy deleting the leftover files using Revo (the offending plugins are now fully removed and don't shop up on installed software). This made no difference to the disk space oddly. After some internet searching I found something called wiztree that visualized my hard drive and I found well over 200gb of Ableton crash reports!!!! Gulp (see picture). I will try and figure this our but hopefully that should be that.

  • Sunborn
    Sunborn NKS User Library Mod Posts: 3,550 mod
    Answer ✓

    I suggest you to use a good cleaner (I use CCleaner for over a decade, on a daily basis).

    You can not imagine the enormous amount of rubbish that Windows and many apps produce every day! Every single morning, is the first thing i do and the trash from previous day can vary from 80-90 megabyte to over 1 gigabyte, depending on the use.

    For me, such tools are my right hand, equality important as my antivirus.

  • PoorFellow
    PoorFellow Moderator Posts: 6,416 mod

    Great that you got Revo Pro to do the job 🙂

    After some internet searching I found something called wiztree that visualized my hard drive and I found well over 200gb of Ableton crash reports!!!! Gulp (see picture). I will try and figure this our but hopefully that should be that.

    I myself am using the free version of TreeSize , it's great and you can ignore the pro version trial and just use the free version.

  • BIF
    BIF Member Posts: 1,115 Guru
    edited April 14

    I also use Revo Uninstaller Pro. I got the tip for Revo from Jayztwocents on YouTube, and I'm grateful to him for that. And I use it for EVERYTHING I need to uninstall. +100 to @PoorFellow's suggestion of using "forced uninstall" from Revo Pro. It works great and I've never had a problem with something getting corrupted or broken by Revo.

    Revo is even more powerful if you use the feature to let it "trace"/track things during installation. But that's a manual process and you have to remember to turn it on before you start your install…and then to shut it off after the install is complete. But if you do remember to turn it on/off, then it keeps track of EVERYTHING the installer does. If it creates a hidden folder someplace, Revo sees that and tracks it. If the installer creates some registry entries, Revo sees THAT too, and tracks it. When you uninstall something later with Revo, the trace log gets used for the uninstall (in addition to the product's uninstaller being executed first). It's just a more complete methodology to use the trace feature, but Revo still works great without it.

    During the uninstall process (whether or not the install was traced), Revo often finds clutter and cruft that I didn't know about, ranging from stray folders placed on the drive by the product's installer, to an assortment of registry edits made by the installer or the install process of this or that product.

    For Windows users, Revo is 100% worth the price. And it's not even all that expensive.

    I don't use CCleaner, but that's only because I have not had any need for a general registry cleaning tool. But I'll get it if the need ever comes up.

    For folder tree displays, I still use the old WinDirStat. It helps you visualize huge files or huge directories, which can really simplify the process of finding things like the aforementioned problems with too many logfiles, dumps, other diagnostic information, or all of the clutter that can be created on a day-to-day basis by various programs and applications.

  • Sunborn
    Sunborn NKS User Library Mod Posts: 3,550 mod

    CCleaner is not a "registry cleaning tool". This feature, is just a secondary option, among a lot of useful utilities. This applies to a lot more similar applications. They have hundreds of incredibly useful features.

    Revo is great, but there are lot of equality good apps who do exactly the same thing, for free (for home users)! Try the Patch My PC, it also does many other things apart of complete uninstalling (such as, auto-update over 500 known apps in your computer).

    Btw, one of the most advanced system utilities that i use since a very long time, is the Sysinternals suite, supported by Microsoft itself, and completely free too.

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