Uninstalling software does not remove Microsoft Visual C++

[trstick1]

I have uninstalled old games and programs that does not remove Microsoft Visual C++. Is there a program or a way to find out which program installed is using which version of Visual C++?
Can newer version of Visual C++ 2008 x86 9.0 30729.6161 replace all older versions of 2008 9.0s?

 

[pnamajck]

take this for what it's worth, trstick1:

Spoiler: google.com

Uninstalling software does not remove Microsoft Visual C++ - Google Search

Spoiler: worldstart.com

Link Removed

others will come along and share their thoughts.

 

[patcooke]

If you want to test things out I'd first make a complete image of your system using something like the free version of Macrium Reflect then uninstall all the c++ components and see what happens. If any program subsequently fails you could either reinstall the program which would reinstall the required redistributable or in a worst case you could run a complete restore from the macrium image.

 

[trstick1]

Thanks for the replies. All those Visual C++ together are not taking up a lot of space and my system is pretty stable. It is best to leave them alone.

This is what I found in worldstart.com:
So why are there so many of them on your computer? New C++ libraries become available over time, and there are different versions of each year’s release. The new ones don’t “overwrite” the old ones, however, meaning there may still be data in the older version that programs need to access, and deleting them can prevent those programs from working.

There isn’t a simple and sure-fire way to know which program is using which redistributable version, and you may even have several different software programs all using the same C++ file, so frankly deleting old ones to save a small amount of hard drive space isn’t worth the possible risks.