Preparing for Application Uninstall
This document is designed to assist you in preparing to uninstall multiple
applications.
Step #1: Establish administrative level authority
Log into your computer with the Administrator account or an account with
administrative privileges.
Step #2: The Boot.ini file
Some students have had trouble installing and uninstalling applications due to a
setting within a system file called the boot.ini. This setting is designed to prevent
malicious software from modifying the operating system. However some
applications need this “low level” access, programs such as the Autodesk and
ESRI suites. Therefore we will need to edit the boot.ini file to allow changes
temporarily.
Making the Boot.ini file visible
This file is located on your C drive and is hidden. It is require for Windows to
boot and is designed not to be easily tampered with.
1. Open “My Computer” and then navigate to the C drive.
2. Click Tools on the menu bar and select Folder Options.
3. Select the View tab.
4. Under Advanced Settings there are several settings to change.
Check in the following:
9 Display the full path in the address bar
9 Display the full path in the title bar
Dot the following:
•
Show hidden files and folders
Uncheck the following:
o Hide extensions for known file types
o Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)
Making the boot.ini file writable
This file is typically marked as read only.
1. In the C drive navigate to a file named boot.ini.
2. Right click on the file and select Properties.
3. Towards the bottom make sure Read-only is unchecked under Attributes.
4. Then click Apply then OK.
Editing the boot.ini file
Next we are going to edit this file.
1. Open notepad.
2. Drag and drop the boot.ini file in notepad.
3. You should see something similar to this:
-----[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
------
The part we want to note is the /noexecute=optin because we want change
it to read /noexecute=AlwaysOff:
-----[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=AlwaysOff /fastdetect
------
4. Click File Æ Save. Then close out of the file.
5. Restart the computer.
Note: This boot.ini file can cause the operating system to not boot. So please be
VERY careful when making and saving changes.
<This concludes the Preparing for application Uninstall>