Skidrow/ Uninstall

[PezzyDude]

Hi all.

Recently I had download and installed a game put out by Skidrow, a game called "The 13th Doll"; I downloaded it via/ using a uTorrent client.

I am done playing the game, but, when I went to uninstall it.....I noticed something strange: There is no option to Uninstall.

I have Windows 10, and I checked the Control Panel/ Programs and Features; it's not listed there.

I navigated my way to the directory/ folder for where the game is installed; there's no Uninstall executable there.

I even ran the installer again that came with this Skidrow download, thinking it might "recognize" that the game is already installed and then give me an Uninstall option; nope.

There's a few web sites (from a search I did) that has Skidrow listed:
https://www.skidrow-games.com/ 

https://www.skidrowcodex.net/ 

https://skidrowcodexgames.com/ 

https://skidrowgamereloaded.co/ 

https://skidrowreloadedgame.com/ 

On one of them there was a Contact Us section, so, I tried submitting a message to them; don't know how prompt they'll be in returning a reply.........

So......anybody?  Anyone heard of a situation like this before?  No Uninstall option after installing a game?  How do you uninstall?

Thanks for any help or info;
Pez

[RodneyYouPlonker]

Did you try CCleaner and install that and see if that program will give you an option to remove this game?

I know that for a while CCleaner has been quite good for getting rid of stuff that's on your comp, you can remove software using it and as far as I know it's pretty good people have been using it for years.

Maybe it might help, maybe it won't I'm not really sure.  You did right by trying to run the installer again because that does usually work well in a lot of cases.

[PezzyDude]

Hi Rodney; thanks for the reply.

Yes, I've heard of the CCleaner program; I've had it installed on my system in years past and have used it before.

But, I haven't had a need to use it in recent years, so, I haven't had it on my system.  But, on your suggestion, I went to the maker's web site and downloaded/ installed it.

OK:  After installation of the program, I launched it.  If you're familiar with the program's interface, on the left-hand side I clicked on "Tools" (which has a wrench icon), and then after clicking this, on the right, you see a list of Programs show up that are on your computer.  However, this program/ game of "The 13th Doll" does not show up in this list (just as I mentioned in my original post when I look in my Control Panel/ Programs and Features: not listed there).

So, I started browsing around in the program to see what custom features were available.  On the left when you click on "Options" (which has a gear icon), to the right of it a list of further options appears; one of these options is "Include".  In here, evidently, you can Add items that are not automatically listed by the CCleaner program after it does its initial scan.  So, I clicked on the "Add" button, and then, with the radio button in "Drive or Folder", I navigated my way to the folder where the game is installed.

After doing this and clicking on "OK", a warning message pops up saying "Warning!  This folder will be emptied of all files upon cleaning.  Are you sure you want to do this?"  I clicked on "Yes".  Next, I click/ highlight "The 13th Doll" folder line, and then click on the "Remove" button", and then another message pops up saying "Remove selected entries?", and I click the "Yes" button.  Within the CCleaner interface, that folder/ line disappears, the one that I had selected by highlighting it.  It appears as though it's gone......

However, when I navigate my way to that folder on my computer, it is still there.....all 20+ Gigabytes of it.

What am I missing?  Am I doing something wrong?
Pez

[theSEMAR]

Have you looked on Settings (not classic control panel, but accessed via Start > Settings) > Apps > Apps & features?

or may be you can right click game shortcut in Start Menu, then choose Uninstall.

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For next step if method above don't work, then you can delete manually from:
C:\Program Files
and/or
C:\Program Files (x86)

also delete shortcut manually wich usually in:
C:\Users\[your_user_name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
and/or
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

I think it's safe because the game don't have registry values (doesn't appear in Programs and Features / Apps & features)

[RodneyYouPlonker]

If you can't manage to figure it out, there is always the option of just wiping Windows 10 and reinstalling.

I know it's not always what everybody wants to do but if you can't just seem to remove this program then maybe think about it.

If you decide to just reinstall Windows because this simply bothers you so much about not being able to remove this game, then by all means do it.  Do a fresh install, just don't forget to write down all your installed programs first.  Make sure you do backups of your bookmarks in your browser.  Make a note of things that you have on your PC, do a backup of the Desktop files, back up your My Documents folder, Picture files, Music files etc..

I know this kind of thing is annoying really, at least with Windows 10 it's a lot easier now, there's no drivers to install or anything it usually does them all automatically.  I know that some people are very fussy when it comes to how you have your Windows running and I'm very much like that myself.  If all else fails and CCleaner is no good then just wipe it and put it back on again.

I'm not sure what else to suggest really this game sounds like it will have put all sorts of files everywhere not just in the Program Files folder but all over the place.  Windows 10 is good how you don't even need to use a product key anymore it already knows if your machine has a legit Windows.

Obviously if you can't figure it out then I don't know what else to suggest really, at least if you take Windows off and put it back again then you will be getting rid of this installation completely.

[PezzyDude]

Hi theSEMAR & Rodney; thanks for the further suggestions.

theSEMAR:  Yes, I've also looked in Start > Settings > Apps > Apps & features; the game is not listed there, either.

And the game was never given a shortcut in the Start Menu, so I can't right-click on it to Uninstall.

And yes, I suppose I could always just manually delete the entire folder if it comes to that.

However, even though it does not appear in Programs & Features/ Apps & Features, it does, in-fact, have a Registry entry: Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Attic Door Productions\The13thDoll

In File Explorer, I tried performing a search on "Attic" (for Attic Door Productions) but nothing shows up in the results.  Weird.

Rodney:  I don't think I want to go so far as reinstalling Windows 10 from scratch; it's not like this game is causing any issues on my system (as if a virus or malware got installed with it, too).  My system is running just fine; no abnormalities.  I just would have liked it if this game came with a proper uninstaller.  I've downloaded & installed games before from Skidrow, and they've always had an uninstaller.

And from everything you've described, yes, that's what I would do if I were to attempt to reinstall Win 10 from scratch; I work in the IT field, and build custom PC's, too  

And the install of the game did not put all sorts of files everywhere (besides the main install folder), just one more area located in - C:\Users\[username]\AppData\LocalLow\Attic Door Productions

Pez

[PezzyDude]

Hi all; been a while since I came back to this thread with an update.

Well, I've got an update....and something occurred to me that I'd like to ask.

Update: I finally got CCleaner to work properly.  When I couldn't seem to get it to work properly to remove that game/ folder, I even ended up going to the company's web site and submitting a communication/ support ticket for tech assistance.  But I tell ya, they were really of no help.  After submitting the ticket, about a week went by and the reply I received?  The reply merely told me that they were "escalating your request to our 2nd Line Support Team"......and now it's almost two weeks and still no further reply.  How does a company that puts out this product/ program not know how to support their own product?!?!

Anyway, after Adding the folder (game folder's location) to be deleted, I should not have been clicking on the Remove button yet; after Adding it like I did, it turns out I should have just gone and Run the program and Include Custom entries.  I ended up doing that, and, the folder finally got removed (got back my 20+ Gigabytes!!  ).

So, who knows how the issue originally happened?  Some glitch during the installation procedure?  Your guess is as good as mine.  An installed game is supposed to also have its own uninstall.exe file in its install directory/ folder.  It should also insert an entry into Programs & Features and/ or Settings/ Apps/ Apps & Features.  I remember the old days of MS-DOS games where, when you wanted to delete a game after you were done playing it, you could just delete its entire folder.  After Windows 95, games started to be installed as an actual program, and then you needed to uninstall it properly and not just delete its folder.

Now, the other thing that occurred to me that I'd like to ask about:

Downloading and installing games that you get from a torrent.....yes, there's an element of risk involved.  And yes, there are uploaders who gain a good, positive reputation for their uploads who can supposedly be "trusted".....but still, there's always that element of risk.

In my original post, I mentioned Skidrow.  Also in there was the name "CODEX".  Many of the games that I download from my uTorrent program and install come from these two.

When I download a torrent/ game, before installing, I run a manual virus scan on its folder.  Even after the game is installed, I run another manual virus scan on its installation folder.  The scans come back negative with no viruses found.  However.....

However, in recent months (with these games being from either Skidrow or CODEX), I've contracted little bits of malware, a program known as a bit coin miner.

The way I discovered it?  I've got sensitive hearing, and when my system was idle, I'd hear my *****U fan speeding up as if to meet a sudden demand put upon the processor because of some program or other.

I discovered some program: When I launched Task Manager, there was a listing for something called "SoundMixer".  It seemed like it was legit at first.  It was located in C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft.  But that was the sneaky part: Yes, Microsoft is a trusted name in a Windows 10 operating system, but this SoundMixer folder & file was not made by Microsoft.  If you do a search on the Internet for SoundMixer.exe, you'll see the bad news about it.

Anyway, I was able to easily enough remove it from my system......but then I noticed: The install date for this program (it's happened to me twice in recent times) coincides with the date that I installed a game....a game I download from my uTorrent program and installed on my system.

So, you probably know or can figure out how this happens; even though the virus scans I perform on these games comes back negative, what most likely happens is this:  What's happening is likely the result of software "bundling".  Sometimes bundling can happen in a legitimate sense, where you have a well-known, respected company that bundles other software with theirs.  But, during the installation of the main piece of software from that company, you usually have the option to "opt out" of the other programs that are bundled in.

Well, with these games, whoever compiles them for these repacks, they may not make it an option to opt out.  Or, maybe these other programs (SoundMixer.exe/ bit coin miner) get put in there by another uploader.  Let me hypothesize something and tell me if I'm on the right track.

I also download movies through the uTorrent client.  The majority of the time, these movies also come with subtitles (and yes, I like to use them when watching a movie).  On the rare occasion when a movie doesn't have subtitles included, there are many web sites out there where you can download subtitles for just about any given movie.  So yes, I'll do that.

When I download subtitles and extract them into the folder that contains the movie that I downloaded, I'm "adding" something to that folder that wasn't there when I originally downloaded it.  And if I then eventually launch my uTorrent program again with the movie still there, a file (folder) which I am now seeding, then it's going to include that subtitle file which I extracted into it.  Won't a person who now downloads that movie now get the subtitle file that I've included in the folder?

So, is my logic sound?  Am I on the right track?  Could this be what happens when I get these malware (SoundMixer.exe/ bit coin miner) programs inserted into my system?  Maybe not the original uploader, but someone else, put it in there?

Please let me know what you think; thanks,
Pez

[RodneyYouPlonker]

That's a very good post mate.  I'll just keep it short really, the free version of CCleaner is simply just free, I know you can go pro.  I'm not sure if the free version is very well supported or not.  Maybe if somebody was a pro customer it might be different and they might be more helpful.

Maybe to them it's not really worth their time, especially with such a big program as it is.

Bitcoin mining is a very good way for people to make some money so you've got to expect that it will happen from time to time, always check your performance stats in Task Manager if you're unsure and see if there's a huge rev in your processing power.

In regards to making torrents, if this torrent contains some bunch of files when the torrent is created and the torrent file is processed, then you will have a torrent that contains all that folder.  If you then later on add those files but you don't create the torrent again then it won't matter.  The torrent file only sees what is in the folder during the creation process.

I've done a lot of movie encoding myself and I've always added the subtitles in full from the Disc, I always make sure they are inside the containing MKV file so there's no work to be done.  I've never been in the habit of adding separate subbies to torrent folders it's just not my style at all.  There was a time when I used to play games and I used to Pirate them.  Those days are long gone for me, I have bought games in the past and I just liked to buy a game officially.  Even though I bought games I still had lots of problems.  This is probably why I don't bother much, to me not worth messing my comp up with a pirated game.  Like you're saying, if you run into problems it can be annoying and in worst case you have to wipe Windows and put back again, just such a drag to carry out.

I was a gamer some time ago, I bought games eventually but then gave up.  Never played those games, had more fun messing with movies.  Even with movies sometimes you find that some don't work and you have problems just trying to play movie discs.  Glad you've managed to get rid anyway, CCleaner can be good but just don't add all that software it tries to install and fool a person into clicking on, stuff like trial Anti Virus and stuff like that.

If CCleaner doesn't work then there's not much else I can suggest, but with CCleaner be careful there has been talk about Registry clean-ups to be slightly damaging to Windows 10, maybe just stick to doing internet and web cleaning in most cases...

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Oh yeah and also not forgetting of course that if you're into Pirating games on Windows 10, if you don't successfully block all the Telemetry that Windows 10 uses then it means that Microsoft can see what you're doing on your PC and they can see what you're installing.  They have the option, which usually happens during major updates, to actually remove your Pirated Games.  If you don't block them properly there's a good chance this will happen and they will take things off they don't like the look of.

Really it's a good idea to make sure you block the Telemetry but without doing any damage to Windows so that updates don't work probably.  If you use some programs you can actually damage your Windows 10 and make a mess of things and then no updates will download and no patches coming from Microsoft.  You have to be careful really, best place to look is on youtube and do some research on the subject.  "how to block Windows 10 telemetry" is a good place to start.  See what you can figure out on the whole subject.

I know that Windows 10, a lot of people are a bit funny about it, they have every right to be.  Windows 7 is going to be going out of operation on this coming Tuesday so most people who actually care about getting all the right security patches will find that they are being moved onto Windows 10 from Tuesday next week unless they want a Windows 7 machine or something along those lines to be some kind of "Hacker's paradise" for people who like to enjoy having fun online and especially what's the best place to do that, well here of course on a Torrent site or somewhere else.