Before you can use a program, you must first install it on your computer. Most programs come packaged in a CD or DVD and will automatically launch an install routine when you insert this media on your computer. If the installer does not automatically launch, open the CD or DVD in My Computer and look for a file named setup. When you click on the setup file, your program’s installation routine will begin. In some cases, you can get a cheaper version of a program if you choose to purchase it from an online store, in which case you only have to download the installer from a website to your hard drive and double-click on it to start the installation routine for that program.
Many programs have their own uninstall routine which will remove the files that make up that program from your computer. To manage the installed programs on your computer you will often use the Add/Remove Programs applet in the Control Panel (Start, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs). You will rarely use this applet to add programs to your computer because most programs have their own installer. However, you will use this applet a lot to remove programs or change how they are installed.
For example, if you have Microsoft Office installed on your computer you actually have a whole suite of programs installed. Microsoft Office includes individual programs for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, and email.
If you want to completely uninstall Microsoft Office, click on the Remove button. If you only want to remove an individual Office program that you will not be using, click on Microsoft Office on the list displayed when you open the Add/Remove Programs applet, then click on the Change button. This will open up another window where you can select to remove the whole suite or just change which programs are installed. The steps for removing the program will vary for each program you have installed.
Many programs actually share some files, and they may ask you during the uninstall process if you want to remove those shared files. Even though it will waste some disk space, it is often safer to just say yes when prompted and leave these shared files on your hard drive, in case they are needed by the system or by another program.
This article needs to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (February 2016) Installation (or setup) of a (including and ), is the act of making the program ready for. Because the process varies for each program and each computer, programs (including ) often come with an installer, a specialized program responsible for doing whatever is needed for their installation.
Installation may be part of a larger process. Installation typically involves code being copied/generated from the installation files to new files on the local computer for easier access by the operating system. Because code is generally copied/generated in multiple locations, uninstallation usually involves more than just erasing the program folder.
For example, registry files and other system code may need to be modified or deleted for a complete uninstallation. Contents. Overview Some computer programs can be executed by simply copying them into a stored on a computer and executing them. Other programs are supplied in a form unsuitable for immediate execution and therefore need an installation procedure. Once installed, the program can be executed again and again, without the need to reinstall before each execution. Common operations performed during software installations include:. Making sure that necessary are met.
Checking for existing versions of the software. Creating or updating program and folders.
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Adding configuration data such as, entries or. Making the software accessible to the user, for instance by creating or.
Configuring components that run automatically, such as or. Performing. Updating the software versions These operations may require some charges or be free of charge. In case of payment, installation costs means the costs connected and relevant to or incurred as a result of installing the drivers or the equipment in the customers' premises.
Some installers may attempt to trick users into installing such as various forms of, or software of partnering companies. To prevent this, extra caution on what exactly is being asked to be installed is needed.
The installation of additional software then can simply be skipped or unchecked (this may require the user to use the 'custom', 'detailed' or 'expert' version of the installation procedure). Such malicious conduct is not necessarily a decision by the software developers or their company but can also be an issue of external installers such as the installer. Necessity As mentioned earlier, some computer programs need no installation. This was once usual for many programs which run on, and. As computing environments grew more complex and fixed replaced, the need for tangible installation presented itself.
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A class of modern applications that do not need installation are known as, as they may be roamed around onto different computers and run. Similarly, there are live operating systems, which do not need installation and can be run directly from a, or loaded over the network as with.
Examples are 4.0, various, or Mac OS versions 1.0 through 9.0. (See and.) Finally, which run inside a, do not need installation. Types Attended installation On systems, this is the most common form of installation. An installation process usually needs a user who attends it to make choices, such as accepting or declining an (EULA), specifying preferences such as the installation location, supplying passwords or assisting in. In graphical environments, installers that offer a are common.
Attended installers may ask users to help mitigate the errors. For instance, if the disk in which the computer program is being installed was full, the installer may ask the user to specify another target path or clear enough space in the disk. Silent installation Installation that does not display messages or windows during its progress. 'Silent installation' is not the same as 'unattended installation' (see below): All silent installations are unattended but not all unattended installations are silent. The reason behind a silent installation may be convenience or subterfuge. Is almost always installed silently.
Unattended installation Installation that is performed without user interaction during its progress or with no user present at all. One of the reasons to use this approach is to automate the installation of a large number of systems. An unattended installation either does not require the user to supply anything or has received all necessary input prior to the start of installation. Such input may be in the form of or an answer file, a file that contains all the necessary parameters. And are examples of operating systems that can be installed with an answer file.
In unattended installation, it is assumed that there is no user to help mitigate errors. For instance, if the installation medium was faulty, the installer should fail the installation, as there is no user to fix the fault or replace the medium.
Unattended installers may record errors in a for later review. Headless installation Installation performed without using a connected. In attended forms of headless installation, another machine connects to the target machine (for instance, via a ) and takes over the display output. Since a headless installation does not need a user at the location of the target computer, unattended headless installers may be used to install a program on multiple machines at the same time. Scheduled or automated installation An installation process that runs on a preset time or when a predefined condition transpires, as opposed to an installation process that starts explicitly on a user's command. For instance, a willing to install a later version of a computer program that is being used can schedule that installation to occur when that program is not running.
An operating system may automatically install a device driver for a device that the user connects. Super joystick tv game power adapter. (See.) Malware may also be installed automatically.
For example, the infamous was installed when the user plugged an infected device to their computer. Clean installation A clean installation is one that is done in the absence of any interfering elements such as old versions of the computer program being installed or leftovers from a previous installation. In particular, the clean installation of an operating system is an installation in which the target is erased before installation.
Since the interfering elements are absent, a clean installation may succeed where an unclean installation may fail or may take significantly longer. Network installation. Not to be confused with. Network installation, shortened netinstall, is an installation of a program from a that may be done by installing a minimal system before proceeding to download further packages over the network. This may simply be a copy of the original media but software publishers which offer site licenses for institutional customers may provide a version intended for installation over a network. Installer Look up in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
An installation program or installer is a computer program that installs files, such as applications, drivers, or other software, onto a computer. Some installers are specifically made to install the files they contain; other installers are general-purpose and work by reading the contents of the to be installed. The differences between a and an installer are.
This box:. Criterion Package manager Installer Shipped with Usually, the operating system Each computer program Location of installation information One central installation database It is entirely at the discretion of the installer. It could be a file within the app's folder, or among the operating system's files and folders.
At best, they may register themselves with an uninstallers list without exposing installation information. Scope of maintenance Potentially all packages on the system Only the product with which it was bundled Developed by One package manager vendor Multiple installer vendors Package format There could be as many formats as the number of apps Package format compatibility Can be consumed as long as the package manager supports it. Either newer versions of the package manager keep supporting it or the user does not upgrade the package manager.
The installer is always compatible with its, if it uses any. However, installers, like all computer programs, may be affected. Bootstrapper During the installation of computer programs it is sometimes necessary to update the installer or package manager itself. To make this possible, a technique called is used.
The common pattern for this is to use small executable files which update the installer and starts the real installation after the update. This small executable is called bootstrapper.
Sometimes the bootstrapper installs other prerequisites for the software during the bootstrapping process too. Common types. Main article: Cross-platform installer builders produce installers that run on Windows, and.
An example is. Includes an installation and an associated service called. Provides a bare minimum of tools required to create installers using Windows Installer in the freely available. Third party tools may supporting create installers using this API to speed the process.
Examples include ( and. Installation authoring tools that do not rely on Windows Installer include , (MindVision Software), (SamLogic), and. MacOS includes, a native.
MacOS also includes a separate software updating application, but only supports Apple and system software. Included in the dock as of 10.6.6, the shares many attributes with the successful for iOS devices, such as a similar app approval process, the use of Apple ID for purchases, and automatic installation and updating. Although this is Apple's preferred delivery method for macOS, previously purchased licenses can not be transferred to the Mac App Store for downloading or automatic updating. Commercial applications for macOS may also use a third-party installer, such as Mac version of (MindVision Software) or InstallerMaker. System installer A system installer is the software that is used to set up and install an operating system onto a device. Examples of system installers on Linux are and for, for and, for -based versions of, and for -based projects.
Another example is found in the operating system, which uses a utility called to install itself onto a device after booting from a. See also.
Updated with a link to Microsoft's. You’ve, pored through the and, and have waited breathlessly for the day that. So how do you do it, exactly? We've got you covered.
Before you do anything, however, we’re going to give your our standard advice: back up your data. Microsoft will give you the option of wiping your files at various stages during the process. Whether you go that route or not, make sure to OneDrive, a USB key, or something else—just in case. There are three primary ways to obtain Windows 10: either buy a new PC with Windows 10 preloaded, buy a license key to Windows 10 online, or upgrade an existing Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 PC.
We’re going to ignore the first option and focus on the latter two, which we’ll consider to be essentially the same scenario. Let’s assume that you’re upgrading an older PC, then. If you own a qualifying Windows PC, you had the option of “reserving” a free copy of Windows 10, an offer which will expire a year from now. If you did reserve a copy, chances are that your PC has downloaded a copy of Windows 10 in the background. At some point, Windows 10 will invite you to begin the upgrade process. Microsoft That’s the simplest option, especially if you don’t have any immediate, desperate need to download Windows 10. Let Microsoft push Windows 10 at its leisure, and it will end up in your hands eventually.
But there’s a second option, one that’s a bit more fun. And that’s to download Windows 10 right now. The new Windows media creation tool shortcut Traditionally, Windows users would upgrade by inserting an installation CD or DVD into their PC. Over time, users became trained to burn their own.ISO files on their own media. And starting with Windows 8, Microsoft offered the option of restoring a Windows installation from an ISO file stored on a DVD or even on a flash drive. Etci national rules for electrical installations training.
With the, you don’t even need to take that step—it creates a bootable flash drive that you don’t need to futz with. Just make sure the USB drive's at least 3 GB in size. Mark Hachman You have the option of using Microsoft’s tool either for upgrading the current PC, or to store the bits on a USB key for safekeeping. On the media creation tool page, select the proper version—check the system settings to double-check whether you’re running a 32- or 64-bit OS.
Then download and run it. Though simple, the tool has a number of lovely features—including the ability to simply upgrade the PC. Yes, it’s true—you don’t need the Windows 10 reservation, as the tool will simply jump you to the head of the line.
Even better, you can select whether you want Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Professional, either 32-bit or 64-bit versions, and even the installation language. Mark Hachman Note that you can use this tool not only to upgrade Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 PCs, but also Windows 10 PCs with older builds. Don’t get sneaky, though. You won’t be able to score a free upgrade to Windows 10 Professional if you existing license doesn’t support it. Here’s a recap of who gets what. Windows 10 Pro You can try a clean installation by booting directly from the USB key or DVD; when you do so, you have the option of keeping your files or wiping out everything. However, I ran into an issue where Windows claimed my disk partitions were improperly organized and refused to let me go further. I tried an in-place installation instead.
From there, however, the installation proceeded smoothly. Make sure you allow Windows to download relevant drivers as the installation proceeds. You’ll need to agree to a license agreement, and then the installation process will begin in earnest. Mark Hachman Make sure you allow Windows to grab updates as it goes. You may run into a situation where Windows asks for a license key. If you’re upgrading from a licensed copy of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, you can click the tiny “skip” option; Microsoft will dig out the license key from the depths of your machine. If this is a brand-new installation, of course, you’ll need to enter the proper key.
Microsoft encourages you to upgrade to Windows 10 first, and then—if you so choose—wipe the drive and reset Windows to improve performance. You can do in the Settings Update & Security menu. There, you’ll have the option to keep your personal files and reinstall Windows, remove all your files and settings, or perform a factory reset, which will probably bring the PC back to Windows 8.1. We haven't tried it yet. ( Editor's Note: We have tried it now, and yes, on an HP Spectre x360 that came preinstalled with Windows 8.1, it resets to 8.1.) That same menu offers a chance to roll back from Windows 10 to Windows 8.1, as well.
That option expires a month after you upgrade to Windows 10. Are you still having problems upgrading to Windows 10? One final note: you can upgrade an earlier Windows 10 Insider build to the 'RTM' version using the tool. But doing so will take you off of the Insider track. If you want to hop back on to enjoy further beta upgrades, you can enable it in the Settings. But downgrade to Windows 8.1? Windows 10 is terrific, and well worth the wait.
And if you’re feeling a little nervous about your first steps into the brand new world of Windows—don’t worry. Our Windows 10 tutorial will arrive very soon. In the meantime, be sure to check out first.
Updated at 10:02 AM with a bit more information on the installation process and at 10:52 AM with more details about the Insider track.
The problem is that there is no standard way to install an application on a Windows machine. There's supposed to be, but the reality is that doing it right is extra, often complex work. Many simply don't bother, and do things their own way. As a result, there's no central repository of information about what's on your machine. Fortunately, there are a few standard and semi-standard places we can look. Add/Remove Programs Fire up Windows Control Panel, and click on Add or Remove Programs.
You should get something very similar to this: Scroll down that list, and you'll get a fairly comprehensive list of the applications that have been installed on your machine. For the record, in a perfect world, that list would be enough. But this is far from a perfect world. All Programs Click your Start menu, and then click on All Programs. On one of my machines you'd see a massive list: Applications which don't follow the rules to install properly into Add/Remove Programs, above, will often still install themselves into your Start menu. (Frequently that's where they put their own custom un-install link, if they provide one.) This serves as an additional list of applications installed on your machine.
You may also need to traverse into some of the sub-menus, most notably 'Accessories', to get the entire list. 'In short: an installed program doesn't need to follow any rules.' C: Program Files Another good location to examine is the folder on your Windows Drive where most programs are installed. Typically that's C: Program Files. Fire up Windows Explorer and navigate there and you should see something like this: Once again here you'll see a long list, though this time often by vendor name rather than program name. You may need to look inside many of the sub-folders to see what they contain to get a clear understanding of what applications each folder might represent. The 'gotcha' with this particular approach is uninstall.
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Many programs, when they uninstall themselves, will leave their subfolders in 'c: program files'. You may find subfolders for software that you uninstalled long ago. The Registry I need to mention the registry for completeness, but in all honesty, I'd avoid it for this particular problem. Yes, many, if not most, installed programs do place information into the registry. But the better behaved ones will have been found by the steps above, and the others - well, there's no telling where in the registry they may have placed their information. The PATH Fire up a Windows Command Prompt, and type in 'SET' followed by Return. You'll see a list of many variables, one of which is 'PATH': Path=C: WINDOWS system32;C: WINDOWS;C: WINDOWS System32 Wbem Yours may be quite different, as some installations like to add things to the PATH.
The PATH represents the folders in which Windows may look for programs. So, each directory listed in the PATH is a place where you may find installed programs in the form of '.EXE' files. The problem here is that Windows itself is in the PATH. That means that you will find many.EXE files that are not installed programs at all; they're Windows itself. Other Places In reality, a program could be installed anywhere on your hard disk, could place information anywhere in the registry, or not, could store configuration files in your user directory, the Windows directory, or anywhere else. In short: an installed program doesn't need to follow any rules. That's why things like virus scanners don't try to use rules - they simply scan the entire hard disk looking for problems.
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But depending on how exhaustive you want to get, the first two or three ideas here should get you 99% of what you're looking for. Article - March 6, 2007. John Benson March 10, 2007 7:28 AM How do I find out what's installed on my machine? I recommend Belarc Advisor.
(www.belarc.com) It gives me an amazing detailed profile of my computer with hundreds of suggestions - very strong on security issues. 'The license associated with the Belarc Advisor product allows for free personal use only. Use on multiple computers in a corporate, educational, military or government installation is prohibited. See the license agreement for details. The information on this page was created locally on your computer by the Belarc Advisor. Your computer profile was not sent to a web server.' L Blackwolf March 10, 2007 8:26 AM How do I find out what's installed on my machine?
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I also recommend Belarc Advisor. And SIW (System Information for Windows) It performs computer configuration analysis and diagnostics. It gives detailed information about your computer properties and settings, detailed specs for:. Software: Operating System, Installed Software and Hotfixes, Processes, Services, Users, Open Files, System Uptime, Installed Codecs, Licenses. Hardware: Motherboard, Sensors, BIOS, CPU, chipset, PCI/AGP, USB and ISA/PnP Devices, Memory, Video Card, Monitor, Disk Drives, CD/DVD Devices, SCSI Devices, S.M.A.R.T., Ports, Printers.
Network: Network Cards, Network Shares, currently active Network Connections, Open Ports. Tools: Password Recovery, Reveal passwords hidden behind asterisks, Product Keys and Serial Numbers (CD Key), MAC Address Changer, Shutdown / Restart. Real-time monitors: CPU, Memory, Page File usage and Network Traffic. SIW can create a report file (CSV, HTML, TXT or XML), and is able to run in batch mode (for PC Auditing and Inventory).
SIW is a standalone utility that does not require installation - one less installed program on your PC as well the fact that you can run the program directly from a USB flash drive (Portable Freeware). Tester August 24, 2010 2:33 AM 1. Open command prompt with admin rights. That is, type in cmd either in Start menu search box or in Run dialog box and hit Ctrl + Shift +Enter to open the command prompt with admin rights.Alternatively you can also go to All Programs Accessories and right-click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator. Click continue button if you get User Account Control (UAC) Prompt.
Here in the Command Prompt, type WMIC and hit enter. Once you type hit enter to see below message. Next, you need to type the following command: /output:C: InstallList.txt product get name,version Where “C” is the drive letter where Windows will store the installed applications list. You can also change the name of the output file and drive letter if you want to modify the output location. Also note that this trick should work in Windows 2000 & XP operating systems without problems. However Belarc Advisor is also good as it creates a detailed list installed apps, missing Microsoft hotfixes, anti-virus status and displays the results in your Web browser.
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