Can I safely uninstall these?

[jmolinejr]

Hello,
Some software called sim city came installed on my pc when I bought it a few years ago. Can I safely uninstall this and outlook express from the add/remove area? I'm afraid it might take something important with it, but I don't need them anymore.
Thanks, John

[Junky]

You can uninstall the programs, but when asked if you want to also remove a shared file, don't remove it...keep it. Better safe than sorry. In fact, if asked if you want to remove any file, say NO and keep it. Other than that, the program will be removed without asking anything. You may have to delete the program manually...but it will let you know by saying something like all of the parts were not removed. It's been so long since I read it I can't remember exactly what it says. You'll know.

IMHO, I'd keep Outlook Express. I'd remove Sim City.

[jmolinejr]

Hello,
Everything worked out fine, but why should I keep Outlook express? It's the most vulnerable to viruses and when I click read mail, it opens whatever is in the inbox. If I right click it opens before I can delete it. I have contacted suppport for Outlook and they can't figure out why it does this or what to do about it. They have run me through all the uninstall and reinstalls, and tweaks etc. but can't fix it. Any ideas?
Thanks, John

[lynnm]

Outlook Express is built-in to Windows and deleting it is more trouble than it is worth. That said,it is not an especialy bad program.

Many will disagree but I say leave it alone.

[smurfy]

For what it's worth, I do disagree slightly with everybody :)
Outlook Express is not really that embedded into W95 and is safe to uninstall.
Having said that, many of the percieved Outlook Express security problems actually only apply to Outlook (the MS Office version, not the "domestic" version).

I use Outlook97, Outlook Express and Netscape Messenger for different mail accounts (plus Outlook 98 and 2000 at work) and frankly, OE 5.5 is by far the easiest to configure and use.

John, what version of Outlook Express are you using?

[jmolinejr]

Hello,
The version is MS Outlook 5.0. Actually it is my wife's account, but I'm the one that has to deal with it. For now we are pulling her new messages up through a Yahoo Mail account. This way, if anything looks suspicious, we can delete it.
Thanks for your help, John