DeepPurge v0.9.0

A thorough, open-source Windows uninstaller that goes deep. Removes programs completely, hunts down every leftover, and cleans system cruft that other tools miss. Ships a GUI and a headless CLI for scripting / Task Scheduler / Intune / SCCM.

Features

Uninstall

• Installed Programs - Full registry scan (HKLM + HKCU, 32/64-bit) with extracted program icons
• Bulk Uninstall - Multi-select + one-click sequential uninstall with silent flags auto-applied (inspired by BCUninstaller)
• winget integration - Programs tracked by winget are tagged with their package ID; upgrade-available badge + right-click → "Upgrade via winget"; uninstall uses winget uninstall --id ... --exact before registry fallbacks, and doctor reports source health when package-manager enrichment degrades (inspired by BCU source-adapter pattern)
• Scoop integration - Scoop apps that skip the Windows installer DB are auto-discovered, merged into the list, and removed through scoop uninstall
• Chocolatey integration - choco list --local-only --limit-output entries are merged into the installed programs list and removed through non-interactive choco uninstall
• Silent-switch database - Curated per-installer-family silent flags (/S, /qn, /VERYSILENT, /quiet, Squirrel --uninstall --silent) with vendor fingerprint overrides (inspired by PatchMyPC)
• Forced Uninstall - Scan for remnants of already-removed or partially uninstalled programs
• Windows Apps - Remove UWP/MSIX apps including system bloatware
• Leftover Scanner - Three scan modes (Safe / Moderate / Advanced) for registry keys, files, and folders
• Export - Export installed programs list to HTML, CSV, or JSON

Cleanup

• Junk Cleaner - Browser caches, temp files, crash dumps, prefetch, installer cache, Windows Update leftovers
• Evidence Remover - Recent documents, jump lists, thumbnail cache, clipboard, DNS cache, Explorer history, Windows logs, crash reports, error reports, font cache, delivery optimization cache
• Empty Folders - Scan common locations for empty directory trees and remove them
• Disk Analyzer - Folder size breakdown and large file finder (50MB+) with delete capability. Uses WizTree's raw-MFT technique (FSCTL_ENUM_USN_DATA + FSCTL_GET_NTFS_FILE_RECORD) on NTFS volumes; parallel FindFirstFileExW(FIND_FIRST_EX_LARGE_FETCH) fallback on ReFS/exFAT/FAT32. Typical full-drive scan in seconds.
• MSI/MSP orphan cleanup - Scans %WINDIR%\Installer for old MSI/MSP files not referenced by active Windows Installer products
• Dry-run / Preview mode - Every destructive pipeline can be previewed: enumerate and size items without touching them (inspired by BleachBit)
• Secure Delete - Privacy-grade selected-file wipe (single-pass cryptographic random + opaque rename + delete; no volume free-space fill) (inspired by BleachBit/PrivaZer)
• Live progress bars - Every long-running delete reports item / total / bytes-freed / current path in the status bar
• Skipped-item details - Junk and Evidence cleanup summaries expose redacted reasons for missing, denied, unsafe, locked, command-failed, and too-recent items in GUI status, CLI text, CLI JSON, and activity history

System Management

• Autorun Manager - Registry Run/RunOnce, startup folders, and service autoruns with reversible disable (StartupApproved pattern) and delete
• Startup Impact ratings - High / Medium / Low per autorun process, parsed from the Windows Diagnostic Infrastructure boot traces in System32\wdi\LogFiles\StartupInfo\*.xml. Same metric Task Manager uses — no undocumented APIs.
• Digital signature badges - Every autorun entry and service shows its WinVerifyTrust result (signer CN / Unsigned / Untrusted / Revoked) (inspired by Sysinternals Autoruns)
• Browser Extensions - Scan and remove extensions across Chrome, Edge, Brave, Firefox, Vivaldi, Opera
• Driver Store cleanup - Enumerate third-party driver packages via pnputil /enum-drivers, group by .inf family, flag old versions for removal. Recovers 2-10 GB on OEM laptops. (inspired by RAPR / DriverStoreExplorer)
• Context Menu Cleaner - Find and remove orphaned shell context menu entries with broken executables or CLSIDs
• Shortcut repair - Enumerate .lnk files on Desktop / Start Menu via IShellLinkW COM; flag and delete broken-target shortcuts
• Services Manager - View all Windows services, identify orphaned services pointing to deleted executables, disable or delete
• Scheduled Tasks - Full task inventory with orphan detection, disable and delete capabilities
• Registry Hunter - Parallel substring or regex search across HKLM, HKLM\WOW6432Node, HKCU, and HKCR with scope filters (keys / names / data), live hit counter, and depth / hit / time caps (inspired by NirSoft RegScanner and Eric Zimmerman's Registry Explorer)

Windows Repair

• SFC / DISM / chkdsk - One-click sfc /scannow, DISM /RestoreHealth, DISM /StartComponentCleanup (WinSxS), chkdsk with live stdout streaming
• Font + Icon cache rebuild - Fixes broken cache corruption without a reboot
• Per-app repair - winget repair <id> and msiexec /fa {ProductCode} /qn for reinstall-without-data-loss

Installation Monitor (flagship)

• Before/after snapshot - Captures filesystem + registry manifest before and after a traced installer; the diff becomes a precise per-app removal list
• Replay uninstall - "Forced Uninstall" references the exact manifest instead of heuristic name-matching and skips replay files whose size, timestamp, or SHA256 no longer matches the captured identity
• Manifests persisted in %LocalAppData%\DeepPurge\Snapshots\<name>.manifest.json (or ./Data/Snapshots/ in portable mode)

Community Cleaner Definitions

• winapp2.ini integration - Parses the community-maintained winapp2.ini database (2,500+ third-party cleaners). Auto-downloads on first run with commit/date/SHA256 provenance and a previous-file backup, honours Detect= / DetectFile= gating so only applicable rules fire, and gates every path through SafetyGuard.
• Validated custom JSON cleaners - Define versioned *.cleaner.json documents with schema linting, risk labels, provenance, expanded target previews, registry scope checks, and estimates. Use deeppurgecli cleaners schema and deeppurgecli cleaners validate <file> before list|preview|run [--dry-run].

Duplicate Finder

• Three-stage hash - Group by exact byte-size → XXH3 first-MB head-hash → XXH3 full-file for remaining collisions. Skips reparse points / junctions to avoid infinite loops. (algorithm from Czkawka / fdupes)

Health Dashboard

• System health score - Assesses 4 categories (Junk Files, Privacy, Startup Impact, Disk Space) with 0-100 scores and A-F grade

Program Discovery

• Portable app detection - Scans Desktop, Downloads, PortableApps folders, and removable drives for standalone executables not tracked by any installer. Shows with a "Portable" source badge. (only Uninstalr previously offered this)
• Game platform detection - Discovers Steam games (via libraryfolders.vdf + appmanifest_*.acf), Epic Games (via .item manifests), and GOG Galaxy titles (via registry). Games appear in the unified programs list with platform badges.
• Bundleware / sideload detection - Flags programs installed on the same day from a non-trusted publisher that appear as the sole representative of their publisher — likely bundled silently with other software.
• OEM bloat scoring - Flags likely OEM support/trial utilities while suppressing driver and firmware components
• BAM remnant discovery - Reads Windows Background Activity Moderator data to find previously-executed binaries that are no longer installed. Available via deeppurgecli orphans --remnants.

System Slimming

• Windows component cleanup - Scans ~15 removable components (wallpapers, sample media, help files, MSI patch cache, delivery optimization, WER reports, font cache, log folders, Windows.old) with per-item sizes and delete through SafetyGuard.

Shell Integration

• Context menu - deeppurgecli register-shell adds "Uninstall with DeepPurge" to the right-click menu for .exe files. unregister-shell removes it. The GUI accepts --target <path> to pre-populate the forced-uninstall panel.
• Expert / Safe mode - Toggle visibility of advanced operations (secure delete, advanced scan, registry hunter, service deletion). Persists between sessions via settings.json.
• Versioned settings import/export - Move excluded paths, cookie whitelist, program notes, privacy retention, and safety defaults between installed/portable deployments with schema metadata, redacted previews, validation errors, and rollback backups.

Safety

• System Restore Points - View, create, and manage restore points
• Automatic restore point creation before uninstall operations (one per batch in bulk mode — Windows throttles SRSetRestorePoint)
• Deletion Recovery panel - list deletion manifests, preview recorded file/registry deletions, run dry-run restores, and open manifest or backup folders
• Registry Backups panel - Browse, inspect, and restore the .reg exports created before every destructive registry op
• Recycle Bin for file deletions (with permanent-delete and secure-delete fallbacks)
• Confidence-based leftover classification (Safe / Moderate / Risky)
• Centralized SafetyGuard blocks every destructive call against Windows, Program Files, System32, and protected registry hives

Automation

• DeepPurgeCli.exe - Full headless surface. Every workflow (uninstall, clean, repair, driver/shortcut/duplicate scans, install-trace, winapp2 run, update check) is scriptable. Exit codes follow BCU convention (0/1/2/13/1223).
• Scheduled cleaning - Registers tasks in \DeepPurge\ via schtasks.exe with highest privileges for the current Windows user. The GUI offers constrained cleanup presets; the CLI supports custom safe arguments.
• Tray icon - DeepPurge can minimize to the Windows tray, show scheduled-cleaning status, refresh schedule notifications, and launch a background dry-run clean preview.
• Portable mode - Drop a file named DeepPurge.portable next to the exe; every setting / backup / log redirects to ./Data/ beside the binary. USB-stick / field deployment ready. (BCU pattern)
• Update checker - Hits GitHub Releases API to flag available upgrades; never blocks startup.

Themes

Nine built-in themes with runtime switching and persistence between sessions:

• Catppuccin Mocha (dark, default)
• OLED Black (pure black, blue accent)
• Dracula (classic purple)
• Nord Polar (frost tones)
• GitHub Dark (official palette)
• Obsidian (deep black, lavender accent)
• Matrix (neon green on black)
• Arctic (light mode)
• High Contrast (WCAG AAA, bright saturated accents on pure black)

Build

Requires .NET 10 SDK. Run BUILD.bat from the project root.

BUILD.bat

Output:

• build\DeepPurge.exe - GUI, ~66 MB, requireAdministrator manifest
• build\DeepPurgeCli.exe - CLI, ~66 MB, asInvoker manifest (scriptable, elevate externally if needed)
• build\SHA256SUMS.txt - SHA256 hashes for the published release assets

Both executables are self-contained single-file x64 portable builds. Add ARM64 package entries only after matching ARM64 assets are attached to the release and covered by SHA256SUMS.txt.

CLI quickstart

DeepPurgeCli list                           # TSV-formatted installed programs
DeepPurgeCli uninstall "Some App" --silent  # Silent uninstall with auto-flag detection
DeepPurgeCli uninstall "Git.Git" --dry-run  # Preview source-native uninstall command
DeepPurgeCli clean junk evidence --dry-run  # Preview what would be freed
DeepPurgeCli repair sfc                     # sfc /scannow
DeepPurgeCli drivers --old                  # Old driver packages ready to remove
DeepPurgeCli startup-impact                 # High/Medium/Low per autorun process
DeepPurgeCli duplicates C:\Users\you        # Duplicate file groups
DeepPurgeCli snapshot trace "MyApp" setup.exe  # Record install delta
DeepPurgeCli update-winapp2 --check-only       # Show local/remote database provenance
DeepPurgeCli winapp2 .\winapp2.ini --dry-run   # Run community cleaner database
DeepPurgeCli schedule add --name Nightly --freq weekly --time 03:00 --day Mon --args "clean junk evidence"
DeepPurgeCli schedule list
DeepPurgeCli schedule remove --name Nightly
DeepPurgeCli settings prune --dry-run       # Preview expired logs/activity/manifests to remove
DeepPurgeCli settings import settings.json --preview  # Validate an import without changing local settings
DeepPurgeCli check-update
DeepPurgeCli doctor                         # Environment self-test (16 checks, including package sources)

Testing

dotnet test tests/DeepPurge.Tests/DeepPurge.Tests.csproj

The current suite has 352 tests covering parser routing, shared external-process execution, package-manager command builders and source diagnostics, cleaner schema validation, cleanup failure reporting, release validation, privacy retention, SafetyGuard block/allow lists, schedule sanitisation, recovery manifests, versioned settings import/export contracts, static WPF accessibility/resource-drift checks, and support-bundle redaction.

Packaging

• winget — packaging/winget/SysAdminDoc.DeepPurge.yaml (submit via wingetcreate)
• Scoop — packaging/scoop/deeppurge.json (drop into a personal bucket)
• GitHub Releases — build locally with BUILD.bat / Build.ps1, attach both executables plus SHA256SUMS.txt, then run Build.ps1 -ValidateReleaseOnly -ReleaseChecksumsPath <path-to-SHA256SUMS.txt> before publishing package manifests; the validator includes the project-level NuGet dependency audit
• Dependency audit — run Build.ps1 -AuditDependenciesOnly to check Core, App, CLI, and Tests for outdated or vulnerable NuGet packages without using the solution-level dotnet list path
• Authenticode signing — ./Build.ps1 -Sign -CertPath signing.pfx -CertPassword (Read-Host -AsSecureString)

Requirements

• Windows 10/11
• Run as Administrator (enforced by the manifest)
• .NET 10 SDK (build only)
• Optional: winget (auto-detected; doctor reports version/list parser health when unavailable or degraded)
• Optional: Scoop in %USERPROFILE%\scoop\apps (filesystem-scanned; doctor reports root availability and app count)
• Optional: Chocolatey (choco.exe on PATH; doctor reports version/list parser health when unavailable or degraded)

License

MIT License