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Remove Nero Scout from Windows Explorer

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:51:33 +0000

I finally updated my old Nero 7 to the latest Nero version and tried to get rid of as many unnecessary Nero applications as possible during installation. To be honest, I only need the program to burn DVDs and CDs and not to recode videos, create covers or edit sounds. With all the care that I have taken during installation some programs still slipped through, namely Nero Scout which I spotted in Windows Explorer right now.

Before I started removing it I had to find out why it was there in first place. What’s the purpose of Nero Scout ? It turns out that Nero Scout cataloges media files on the computer and stores the information in a database that is being used by other Nero applications. Something that I do not need at all.

Thankfully though it is quite easy to remove Nero Scout if you are using Nero 8. Just start the Nero Scout application from the Start Menu, it’s hidden in the Nero Toolkit menu. Once the application has started it offers two options that disable Nero Scout completely.

I think it should be sufficient to uncheck the Enable Nero Scout option so that Nero Scout will not index media files and that it will not appear in Windows Explorer anymore. Since I wanted to make sure it did not appear in Windows Explorer I unchecked both options starting with the Integrate Nero Scout in Windows Explorer one.

The results can be seen immediately.

Nero Clean Tool

Martin Brinkmann — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:39:04 +0000

The burning software Nero grows in size with every release and it really seems to me that the developers try to pack as many tools and utilities into the software as possible, no matter if the users need them or not. It can happen that the uninstallation of Nero, and it does not really matter if we are speaking of Nero 5 or Nero 8, leaves traces of the application on the system. This can be Registry settings but also files and folders on the hard drive.

I find it rather interesting that Ahead, the developers of Nero, have created the so called Nero Clean Tools that clean a system after uninstalling Nero on it regularly. The tool is intended to be used after the uninstallation and takes care of any remaining Registry entries and files on the hard drive. It mainly was designed to fully remove Nero when an uninstallation did not work correctly.

The Nero Clean Tool is available for Nero versions 5 to 8 plus a version for InCD 4. The page sounds a bit misleading because the short description describes the Nero Clean Tool as a way to cleanup when an uninstallation did not succeed. If you read the instructions though you will notice that they suggest to use the Nero Clean Tool to uninstall Nero completely without mentioning the Windows uninstallation process at all.

I guess it is save to use the Nero Clean Tool exclusively to uninstall Nero from a computer.