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I usually try different kind of softwares which are available on net those can be trial versions or sharewares or freewares. But after trying them when I want to uninstall those its becoming really difficult sometimes and I'm not sure they are fully uninstalled from my computer and some times those softwares giving unnecessary burden to system by leaving some data in the registry.

I want to find a solution or a way to virtually install any software on my computer. Is it possible?

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    You answered your own question with a tag: use a virtual machine.
    – John Lyon
    Commented May 8, 2012 at 4:07
  • Incremental backup?
    – surfasb
    Commented May 8, 2012 at 4:07
  • thank you jozzas for your comment but I don't want to use any virtual machine. without that is there anyway? and can't understand why some one gave me -1 for this valid question..can that person clarify me please?
    – user113701
    Commented May 8, 2012 at 4:27
  • You running XP or W7? If you're running W7, try XP Mode. It's the same as what jozzas is suggesting but much more seamless than using something like Virtual Box.
    – kobaltz
    Commented May 8, 2012 at 4:39
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    @kobaltz: VMware and VirtualBox both have seamless modes, as well--in fact, VirtualBox's seamless mode is actually called "Seamless Mode."
    – rob
    Commented May 8, 2012 at 5:32

3 Answers 3

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As you may already be aware, you can create a Virtual Machine in any virtualization software. Ideally, you would want virtualization software that lets you create snapshots before installing the software, and revert to the snapshot to go back to that exact state and remove all traces of the software you installed. VMware, VirtualBox, and other products allow you to create one or more snapshots. For those virtualization products that don't, you can manually backup the VM image or folder, then install your software and optionally restore the backup if you decide you want to rollback.

Another alternative is to use software that sandboxes your application, such as Sandboxie.

Yet another option is to use backup software that lets you snapshot your live OS and later revert your system to that state. Acronis TrueImage advertises a feature called "Try & Decide" which does this.

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to achieve what you want one usually tries to isolate the application as much as possible from the rest of the system. the easiest way to do this is to give it it's own OS, running on it's own hardware. you can do that with products like VirtualBox, VMWare, QEmu, VirtualPC, VMLite etc.

if you do not provide that kind of full level of isolation you might want to use something called 'application virtualization'. some products falling into this category are:

but, depending on how hard an application wants to sidestep application virtualization, it might work or it might not work. eg, an app checking out the MAC of the NIC to call home and report back that the trial for the machine with the MAC of xyz started now. in these cases only full virtualization helps (because you could "exchange" the NIC the next time, or even keep the date constant etc).

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Revo Uninstaller Pro has a "Real-Time Installation Monitor":

Revo Uninstaller Pro has a feature that allows monitoring of installation of a program. It detects system changes during that installation and the process is done in real time.
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monitor installations, so when the program is no longer needed the system changes made by the installation of the monitored program could be fully reverted as the program has never been installed before!

It's similar to Cameyo and Spoon as akira suggested (I don't know about Enigma). The difference is Cameyo and Spoon are designed towards packaging programs, usually used to make them portable, while Revo Uninstaller is designed to revert changes a program has made during installation.

Aside from that, it has a "Forced Uninstall". From what I understand, it deletes all files and registry entries that contain the program and/or publisher name. I would not recommend using this if possible; it can easily break something (e.g. if you uninstall "Microsoft Office Word 2010", it might decide "Microsoft Visual Studio 2010" entries should be removed, breaking that). Always backup your registry before trying anything like "cleaning" it.

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