At times it may be necessary to remove, change or repair a program that you have installed on your Windows Vista computer. It doesnt take an expert to uninstall a program and its really easy to do this basic housekeeping task yourself.

Although uninstalling a program is the most comon task performed in the Programs and Features section of Control Panel the option to repair or change a program may also be present, depending on the program. When you select the repair option the computer will most likely refer to cabinet files associated with the program or perhaps the original installer program itself and rebuild the existing files associated with the program. This can be very handy if the program has become corrupt. Changing an installed program may allow you to remove or add components or modules of the program, once again this is dependent on the program itself.

To navigate to the Programs and Features (Formerly Add/Remove Programs) section of the Control Panel click on your start menu on the bottom left hand corner of your desktop.

When your start menu opens up you will see control panel on the right hand side of the menu usually about the fourth one up from the bottom. If you have a view applied to your start menu you may have to click on settings to locate control panel. Click on Control Panel.

You may either have Control Panel in Classic View or Windows Vista's default view. If you see icons rather than categories click on Control Panel Home on the top left hand corner of the screen to return your Control Panel to the default view.

With Windows Vista's Control Panel in its default category view you will see Programs as one of the categories and below it you will see a sub-category, Uninstall a Program. Click on Uninstall a Program.

Depending on how many there are on your computer there may be a slight delay as Programs and Features populates a list of programs that are installed. Once the list has been populated you can single click on any program in the list, virtually all of them will have an install option appear above the list, those that have change and repair options will display these choices too. Click on the program you wish to manage and click on Uninstall, Change or Repair according to your preference.

For our example we have chosen to uninstall the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant, not because there was anything wrong with it but simply because we needed an example. A dialogue box will pop up asking you to confirm whether you would like to uninstall the program or not. Click Yes to proceed.

Windows Installer will then remove the program for you, usually informing you of this fact with a dialogue box.

Once the program is removed you will see that it has been removed from the list of installed programs in Programs and Features. Repairs and Changes behave in a similar fashion though you may be prompted for additional information depending on the program. Once you have finished close everything with the X on the top right hand corner and you are done!