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The dangers of installing software Is it possible to install new software packages without putting your data and PC at risk from disaster? Installing software is dangerous. Every time you put another program on to your system, you run the risk of breaking something that's already there. And uninstalling a new application doesn't always fix a troublesome installation, because uninstall routines seldom do their job completely. One way is to use PowerQuest's SecondChance (www.powerquest.com)), which tracks all of the changes made to the hard drive. If an installation messes things up, you can simply roll your hard drive back to an earlier condition. A word of caution: before you use SecondChance to restore your setup, back up your data. You might want to get Windows back to where you had it, say, last Tuesday, but we know that you don't want to lose a week's work in the process. If you would rather not spend money or risk installing this program, you can simply back up the Windows Registry before installing a new piece of software. This won't protect you as well as SecondChance, but it will let you restore the part of Windows that sustains the most damage after a bad installation. See tip, Back up the Registry
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