PCWorld (USA)

Clean crapware off your PC in minutes with this free app

Bulk Crap Uninstalle­r is much more efficient than Microsoft’s “Add or remove programs” tool.

- BY JARED NEWMAN

After getting fed up with the inefficien­t “Add or remove programs” menu in Windows 10, I decided to investigat­e ways to uninstall Windows software in bulk. That led me to a useful and delightful­ly named program called Bulk Crap Uninstalle­r ( fave.co/3da88rx), which does a much better job than Microsoft’s own uninstall utility.

BCU itself doesn’t require installati­on. Just download the portable version ( fave.co/ 3Vcoroj), extract the zip file anywhere on your computer, and run the included program file. After walking through the setup wizard— in which I suggest leaving nearly every setting as is—you’ll land on a master list of all your installed programs. In the left sidebar, click “Select using checkboxes,” and then check off all the programs you wish to remove.

A quick word of caution: Because Bulk Crap Uninstalle­r is much more comprehens­ive than the default Windows uninstalle­r, it may dig up some drivers and other software you may not recognize, but that are important for running other apps. Only remove programs if you’re certain they aren’t necessary.

Once you’ve selected the programs you want to remove, you can either select “Uninstall” or “Uninstall Quietly” from the top menu bar. Select the latter, and Bulk Crap Uninstalle­r will try to remove everything without any annoying uninstall prompts.

Either way, the app will process the removals in an orderly fashion, so you’re never inundated with pop-ups. By default, the app will also create a system restore point, so you can go back to how things were if you’ve removed any important programs by accident. At the end, you’ll have the option to remove associated registry files as well.

BCU isn’t the only program of this kind, but I appreciate that it’s free and open source, and doesn’t come with any bloatware. While some software removal tools can do more harm than good, this one actually lives up to its name ( fave.co/3da88rx).

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 ?? ?? Bulk Crap Installer’s main window.
Bulk Crap Installer’s main window.
 ?? ?? Bulk Crap Uninstalle­r confirmati­on.
Bulk Crap Uninstalle­r confirmati­on.

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