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Installing & Uninstalling

Overview

While both Apple and Microsoft provide guidelines for the way installation and uninstallation of applications should work, the quality of this process is determined by the application developer.

Neither operating system's installation and uninstallation processes are perfect. Occasionally, installers will require that the user quit certain applications before the installer will proceed (generally, this is necessary if you are installing an updated version of a currently running application). Neither operating system requires that developers provide an uninstaller for their application. Microsoft makes up for this in part, however, by only giving an application a "Designed for XP" sticker if it comes with an uninstaller (still, an application does not need to be "Designed for XP" in order to run on XP).

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Mac OS X

Most OS X applications use a "package" design to let users easily install an application. Application packages are essentially folders that contain all necessary files for the application to run; however, they appear as single files to the user. The advantage to this is that a packaged application can simply be "drag-installed" - the installation process merely involves dragging the application package to your Applications folder.

Uninstallation, therefore, is essentially the same process in reverse - drag the application package to the Trash, and empty it. Since packages are self-contained, all the files related to the application are removed.

Drag and drop installing on OS X

Furthermore, because of this self-contained design, you can run multiple versions of an application side-by-side without conflicts - each version will run off of the files in its respective package. This is great, for example, if you work with one version of an application, but need to confirm that documents you create with it will work correctly with another version. With packages, you can jump back and forth between both.

The package design is not perfect, however. For instance, many applications create "preference" files after being initially run, which store your settings for that application. When you drag-uninstall an application, these preference files are left behind since they are not stored within the package, but rather in your ~/Library/Preferences or /Library/Preferences folders. Generally, this is harmless, but corrupt preference files can cause problems; if so, this means that uninstalling and reinstalling the application will not help. Instead, if you need to do a "fresh" install, you will need to figure out which preference files belong to the application and delete those manually. Then, when reinstalling, a new set of preference files will be created.

Some applications are not distributed as packages, but rather come with installers. Generally, installers are necessary if files need to be placed in a certain location for the application to function correctly. Apple provides a standard installer/uninstaller for developers to use with their applications; the installation process generally involves reading a license agreement and selecting which drive to install the application onto. There is also a button to toggle between an "easy" (automatic) install, and a custom install for more advanced options. A downfall to this approach is that while it is recommended that developers provide an uninstaller, it is not required. If a developer does not provide an uninstaller for their application, then you will unfortunately need to figure out which files belong to that application, and remove them manually.

Windows XP

The majority of Windows applications are installed through installers. Windows XP has a convenient "Add/Remove Programs" control panel, which lists all applications installed on your system; through this control panel, you can tweak existing installations, or uninstall applications you no longer want.

XP's Add or Remove Programs control panel

In order for an application to receive Microsoft's "Designed for XP" label, it needs to come with its own uninstaller - this ensures that all "Designed for XP" applications can be uninstalled cleanly and easily.

Some older applications make use of shared DLL files, which are system files that are shared between different applications. When you try to uninstall an application that makes use of shared DLLs, you are presented with this dialog:

Uninstalling an application that uses shared DLL files

If, when uninstalling an application, you also choose to remove the shared DLLs that application uses, it can break other applications that rely on those same files. The above dialog, therefore, is asking if you wish to remove these shared files as well as the application you are uninstalling. If you know that there are no other applications on your system using these files, it is safe to remove them; however, most average users will have no idea whether or not this is the case. In fairness, "Designed for XP" applications will never present the user with such a dialog, so this situation is only a side effect of XP's legacy application support.

XP's "Add/Remove Programs" relies on the application developer to provide the uninstaller. Applications that do not come with an uninstaller will need to be removed manually, which involves removing files from the filesystem as well as entries from the system registry.

Conclusion

Though neither OS's method of adding and removing programs is perfect, OS X's has fewer opportunities for failure. Windows XP relies more heavily on uninstallers than OS X does, so it is more likely to be subject to those flaws.

Mac OS X: 7
Windows XP: 5

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