Diagnosing .INI Files: Example Two

This example assumes that you are basically familiar with the structure and purpose of .INI files. For an explanation of .INI file format, see What Is an .INI File?

The Problem

For this example, assume that you are a technical consultant. A customer of yours installed a demonstration version of a software package onto several PC's for evaluation purposes. After evaluating the software, the customer decided not to purchase it. The customer has asked you to remove the software from all of the systems to which it was installed.

After reviewing the documentation, you find that the software in question has no automated de-install procedure. You must therefore manually reverse the changes that the demonstration software made. This manual process includes the following:

Discover the files that the demonstration software installed and erase them from the system. This is usually fairly simple; programs generally install their files underneath a directory whose name is the same or similar to the program name.
Discover the changes that the demonstration software made to the system's .INI files and reverse them. In particular, you are interested in the changes that were made to the WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI files, which are both located in the Windows directory. This step may not be as easy; it can be quite difficult to locate all of the changes that can be made in these files.

The Resolution

The easiest way to determine the changes made by the demonstration software is to install it on a fresh machine, and observe the changes.

Here's how to proceed:

Make copies of the WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI files. These files are located in the Windows program directory. Lets call the copies WINBAK.INI and SYSBAK.INI.
Install the software in question.
Using .INI Master, open WIN.INI and WINBAK.INI. If any changes were made to the WIN.INI file by the installation, .INI Master will find them and highlight them for you. Choose File | Print to print this information.
Similarly, compare SYSTEM.INI to SYSBAK.INI to discover changes made to the SYSTEM.INI file.

You have now documented the changes that this installation procedure makes to the system's WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI files. Using this information, you can manually edit your customer's WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI files to reverse the changes that were made to those machines. You can use a text editor, Microsoft's SYSEDIT, or .INI Master to edit the .INI files.

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