Eugene's observations

I am sometimes asked if deleting a shortcut off the desktop will remove all traces of a program. It will not. Neither, in almost all cases, will deleting all files in the program's folder(s) (assuming you can locate them all).

Modern programs do other things when being installed and these all need to be undone to restore the PC back to its original state. For example:

1. Shutdown services (programs running in the background) to unlock files
2. Remove COM servers
3. Deregister libraries
4. Uninstall drivers
5. Remove context and quick launch menu items
6. Unpin task bar and start menu icons
7. Remove registry entries and modify remaining ones as appropriate
8. Clear out user generated files
9. Unlink & remove browser add-ons & extensions
10. Remove the uninstall routine from the Programs & Features list

Now all related files can be deleted.