I loaded 25Gb of Vir2 (VSTi digital musical instruments) onto my HDD from DVD to use with my Ableton Live Music Production software. I subsequently uninstalled the Vir2 instruments using "Control Panel" and "Add or Remove Programs" in XP, as they are incompatible with my Ableton software.

13Gb of Vir2 files remain on my HDD in Program Files after uninstalling. They are totally fragmented on the drive, slow down defragmenting, scanning for viruses etc., I will never re-install Vir2, and I need the disk space.

Is it safe to manually delete these files? (i.e. just go into Program Files, right click on the unwanted files and delete.). Is there a better/safer way to get rid of them? Advice from some of you tech savvy board members would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers, Rick.

Yes, since you already uninstalled the program, it is safe to delete the related files and folders. At this time there is no other program that can help you.

Keep in mind the files are not deleted from the hard drive until you 'empty' the recycle bin.

Yes, go ahead and delete them.

I also recommend you download ccleaner (freeware and great), a registry cleaner. This will totally remove any mess left over (there always is...).

Yes, go ahead and delete them.

I also recommend you download ccleaner (freeware and great), a registry cleaner. This will totally remove any mess left over (there always is...).

Yep Wise is quite good and free http://www.wisecleaner.com/ scroll down to the free version (unless you want to pay for the pro versions - which is not necessary really - make sure its not the pro demo which is a time limited freebie) - both registry cleaner and disk cleaner - run the reg cleaner first, then the disk cleaner. Godd software. Empty recycle bin (assuming no crashes after clean up - never happened to me). Then defrag the drive. Of course manually delete the files first as stated above.

Thanks very much for the responses guys, and for the recommedations for clean-up software. As you can perhaps already tell, I'm not too proficient with all this computer stuff!

Cheers. Rick

I use Revo Uninstaller, this is a very good program to remove programs and related files.