Is there a program that will analyze what programs I have on my hard drive and tell me exactly what

When I go to my "Add/Remove" option I see several programs that I have no idea what they do. I'm familiar with the ones that I use regularly but there are also those that I'm not familiar with. I don't want to go nuts and start deleting stuff like drivers etc if they are critical to my system. Also I have programs like Avast, Security task Manager, Ace Utilities, spybot, Safer Networking, Adaware, CCleaner etc on my system to keep things cleaned up. Are all these programs necessary or is there 1 or 2 that will do the trick. Thanks a bunch!

Is there a program that will analyze what programs I have on my hard drive and tell me exactly what they do?nortan

Try this:

Belarc Advisor

http://belarc.com/free_download.html

It may not have all the info you are looking for, but it's a very helpful tool!!

If you still need something different after trying that, then go to this website and see what you can find.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/

Is there a program that will analyze what programs I have on my hard drive and tell me exactly what they do?noton

Go to the website twocows.com or do a search for it, they have all types of neat tools to help you out on there.
There's no utility for that that I know of. You'll just have to take them to your local search engine.

Spybot got poor reviews at pcworld.com. They contracted a company to audit it and several other spyware removers and it scored lower than the other main free offering, Lavasoft's AdAware.
wintask pro might help u
Some of the progras tell u what they do and they tell u how often they are used. If your computer tells u that a certain program is effecting your computer than scan it an try to fi it or delete it. Good Luck Let me know if you need some more help.
Take each program name and do a search on google. you'll be able to find something on everything. You'll have to make you're own decision on whether it is something you want.