Mac software

Complete newbie here. I have a pretty good pc with XP Pro on it and just bought an iMac 24" with the 2.66 processor. Not getting rid of my pc. Both comps are overkill as I do not game or publish or work on a computer. Just do my banking on line and surf and e mail. My initial unhappiness with the mac is the lack of software that would make life easier, such as a good uninstaller that would root it out and uninstall all of it. Hoping some day soon, some enterprising soul will make that

Hi, welcome to the forums, and welcome to Mac!

Sometimes it takes a bit of getting used to but if your like many other in this forum, you will find a great deal of benefit, enjoyment in using a Mac.

Now, in regards to your post, I am not sure what you mean by 'uninstall all of it' but I would imagine what you mean is that there is no 'Uninstall' or 'Add Remove Programs' functionality like you find in Windows.

Macs are a bit easier and for a majority of applications simply dragging the application icon to the Trash (found on your dock) is the way to uninstall. For other applications that actually require an uninstall, the script is usually distributed with the application.

Could you be a bit more specific about what you meant?

Again, welcome!

Thank you for the kind words. I have a third party uninstaller on my pc and it gets the programs out when you ask it to. I then go in to the registry and remove any thing left.
I am away from home and my main comps for a few days, but my main concern at the moment is I downloaded Clamxav and decided I did not want it and apparently did not follow the correct procedure to uninstall it. So when i get home, I will download the uninstall engine and if I can't get it out, will look up the procedure for a os reinstall, and hope that does it. A lot I have to learn about Mac.

Well, start slow and enjoy it. Don't put pressure on yourself and, though I know very well it can get pretty frustrating, one thing I can tell you...99% of the time it's gets better and when you discover/learn new things on the Mac, you will start to be amazed by the capabilities and ease of your new machine.

There are plenty of good resources on the Web on the Mac (this site being one of them) but I would suggest taking a look at David Pogue's book(s):

Amazon.com: Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual (9780596529529): David Pogue: Books

Amazon.com: Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition (9780596514129): David Pogue: Books

Both of these are very useful and full of good information and pretty enjoyable to read actually.

Of course...use the forums as much as possible

Look forward to your posts.

Ahhh...I see now. ClamXav. I had no idea what that piece of software was, I can see now the reason for the frustration.

To be quite honest, I have never run or even looked at virus protection for my Mac, I simply have never seen the need. Of course, I keep up to date with all the security/system updates from Apple but running a third party utility like this has just never seemed necessary to me. Other people will have different (sometimes dramatic) opinions, but I have been running Macs for about 7 years now and have never had a single issue.

Coming from the PC world, I can imagine why this was one of the first things you probably installed. Unfortunately, tools like this often have 'sticky fingers' in that their uninstall is not as trivial as dragging the application to the trash. Looks like the uninstall engine from the ClamXav will do the trick. Let us know how it works out.

you can try appcleaner. it helps to remove delete stuff from your mac. just drag the app and drop it in, and it 'searches' for all files of it and deletes them. (with prior approval from you of course)

Hey, relax about the uninstaller thing. Macs are totally different than PCs. PCs use an installer to spread program related working files and data entries around your hard drive in places like your file registry, windows directory, etc. The problem is those files actually participate in the functioning of the programs, and the running of the operating system, and if they aren't cleanly removed on uninstall, can cause all sorts of problems. With a Mac, that doesn't happen. On a Mac all of the application operational files and entries are contained within the application file bundle. So all you have to do is drag the application file to the trash and you have a "clean" uninstall. Almost. The only things trashing a Mac app leaves behind are totally innocuous data files like user preferences. They are tiny files that don't do anything on their own. They just sit there. If you're a type A personality like me, you can clean them up just to get them off your Finder list. But that's totally elective and operationally unnecessary.

Thanks for the input guys. I have AppZapper, but dragging to the trash doesn't seem to work with Clamxav. Hoping that a reinstall of the os will get rid of it, if it comes to that.

Appzapper is a great program for that. It not only deletes the actual app it also deletes all the directories and any other files on your mac. And i believe its freeware?

Also it makes a fun noise when it deletes the app hahaha

No, AppZapper isn't free, but AppCleaner is and it does the same thing. You should be able to delete all of the applications files with it.