Root should uninstalling apps be this difficult (idiot asking)

[evan938]

so last night i finally decided to go the unrevoked route, took longer than it should have, but i got to the point where i have the superuser access

i tried following the guide in the sticky thread to remove the 2.2 bloatware, but the cmd scripts weren't going anywhere for me...once i put in "cd sdk" i kept getting a "the specified path is invalid" message

got with my dad today (the computer person of the family), and he cant seem to figure out all this stuff either. he was reading through a bunch of things here and elsewhere, and cant figure it out.

then i saw about using this "titanium" program to uninstall apps...tried it on amazon mp3, skype, and city id, and yet all of them are still on my phone and wont come off

i feel like a complete idiot trying to get this done. i just want to get some of this bloatware off the phone, and maybe eventually if i can get the hang of this stuff, load a rom that will give me some better battery life...to start though, i want to get rid of some of the BS apps i dont want or need.

anyone able to point me in the right direction? and please, explain it like you're talking to a ******ed toddler, because thats about how i feel trying to mess with this right now...lol

TIA.

 

[Angels Punishment]

Install a rom.
?????
PROFIT


Explanation: Most roms have the crapware removed. I recommend Cyanogen 6 or 7(nightlies).

 

[evan938]

thanks for not answering my question.

 

[Tempusfugit]

thanks for not answering my question.

That's the answer.. Easiest way to get rid of bloatware = installing a ROM with bloatware already removed.

 

[evan938]

That's the answer.. Easiest way to get rid of bloatware = installing a ROM with bloatware already removed.

im having enough trouble with this rooting stuff as it is...does it really sound like i would have any clue how to install a rom? lol...i have no clue what it will do, whats going to change on my phone, etc.

 

[sdrawkcab25]

Get the donate version of titanium and use the freeze feature on the apps you don't want. Or if you really want them gone, you may have to enable chuck norris mode in the settings of titanium.

 

[Angels Punishment]

thanks for not answering my question.

....thanks for being dumb and rude?

That's the answer.. Easiest way to get rid of bloatware = installing a ROM with bloatware already removed.

This.

im having enough trouble with this rooting stuff as it is...does it really sound like i would have any clue how to install a rom? lol...i have no clue what it will do, whats going to change on my phone, etc.

Use ROM Manager (search for it in the market) to download the rom. If you don't have common sense you'll never make it in the rooting world so if that's the case, unroot or go iPhone

EDIT: I didn't see the last 2 words in your title. iPhone is for you.

And here comes the warning from the mods for being rudely truthful.

 

[cipher6]

Keep at titatanium, its gonna be your easiest quickest way to remove bloatware. Like sdrawkcab25 said, shell out a few bucks for the donate version of Titanium, then use the freeze option on the bloatware.

 

[Podivin]

I used Titanium Backup to remove all the apps you mentioned from the stock ROM with no problem. What steps, exactly, are you doing in TB, and what error message (if any) is it giving you?

 

[evan938]

....thanks for being dumb and rude?

there was no stupidity in my post. i asked a question of how to remove programs, not flash a whole new rom. i was fine with the stock stuff from the last VZW update, minus the apps ill never want or need. because im new to most of this stuff doesn't mean im just going to hop onto an iphone. theres a reason i didnt go with one in the first place. im sure you weren't birthed from your mothers womb with all your knowledge, right? people gotta start somewhere, and thats where im at.

but to the others trying to help me figure out the titanium issue, thanks for the help...i had a buddy stop by last night and figure out a few things for me and kind of walk me through most of this...much easier when someone can show you instead of trying to read stuff online that doesnt make sense...turns out i ran the backup incorrectly (even though i followed all the steps to a T i read on here) and lost anything that wasn't on my SD card...but my buddy showed me the skyraider 3.5 ROM, got that installed on my phone, got a few extra programs removed that i didnt want, wireless tether set up, i think he also gave me the "gotomypc" app and another one to back up my apps. so far so good.

 

[AnotherHiggins]

*blows ref whistle*

evan938, Angels Punishment did answer your question. You sarcastically dismissed his good-intentioned reply and, in doing so, set off a mini flame war. 10 yard penalty.

Installing a new ROM is the easy way to get rid of the bloat.

If you like your phone the way it is (with Sense UI), then check out Virtuous. It's the closest thing to stock, just without the bloat.

As has been recommended, use ROM Manager. It makes it really easy to find, download, and install new ROMs. It will also back up what you've currently got so if you don't like the new ROM you can just go back to using what you were on before.

Contrast that with your original approach, which was to guess which files to remove, hoping not to delete the wrong file.

You stand a MUCH better chance of screwing things up if you go around removing items when you don't know what you're doing. Plus, you probably don't have a Nandroid backup (different from, and MUCH more comprehensive than, Titanium) to save your butt if you do delete the wrong thing.

I see that you've successfully loaded SkyRaider. Congrats. I'd still recommend that you pay for ROM Manager. Like I said, it makes it easy to create backups. And if/when you load one of these backups, it puts everything back exactly the way it was when you backed up - all apps are loaded, all widgets are in place on your homescreens, etc.

That way you can try out other ROMs to find something you really like and have the security of a comprehensive backup should anything go wrong.

 

[evan938]

*blows ref whistle*

evan938, Angels Punishment did answer your question. You sarcastically dismissed his good-intentioned reply and, in doing so, set off a mini flame war. 10 yard penalty.

Installing a new ROM is the easy way to get rid of the bloat.

If you like your phone the way it is (with Sense UI), then check out Virtuous. It's the closest thing to stock, just without the bloat.

As has been recommended, use ROM Manager. It makes it really easy to find, download, and install new ROMs. It will also back up what you've currently got so if you don't like the new ROM you can just go back to using what you were on before.

Contrast that with your original approach, which was to guess which files to remove, hoping not to delete the wrong file.

You stand a MUCH better chance of screwing things up if you go around removing items when you don't know what you're doing. Plus, you probably don't have a Nandroid backup (different from, and MUCH more comprehensive than, Titanium) to save your butt if you do delete the wrong thing.

I see that you've successfully loaded SkyRaider. Congrats. I'd still recommend that you pay for ROM Manager. Like I said, it makes it easy to create backups. And if/when you load one of these backups, it puts everything back exactly the way it was when you backed up - all apps are loaded, all widgets are in place on your homescreens, etc.

That way you can try out other ROMs to find something you really like and have the security of a comprehensive backup should anything go wrong.

i understand what you're saying, and you think that he helped me with his original answer, but "install a rom, ?????, profit" didnt help me. figuring out how to back up all my apps (correctly) before i installed a new rom would have been great. instead, everything that was on my phone but not on my SD card was gone. all my text messages (some of which had info i needed) gone, all my apps, gone. luckily my pictures (a lot of my new nephew) were on my SD card, so those were safe. games i was playing, scores gone, etc. the suggestion for using rom manager didnt come into play until most way into this thread.

had i received a response like what you just posted, it would be much more of what i was hoping to find out instead of "install a rom, ?????, profit".

either way though, i dont see any way of getting my stuff back...there is a "backup" stored to my computer that has quite a few winzip files (.android_secure, boot, cache, data, datadata, recovery, system) and a MD5 file labeled nandroid.md5 but shows the size as 0kb, so theres nothing there

if anyone has any idea if i might be able to get back some of that stuff that i lost with what ive pointed out is in that saved file, that'd be friggin amazing. lol. id really like to get back those texts i had on my chomps program when the phone was stock...those had the stuff i would like to get back most...the game scores im not as worried about...the apps, ive re-downloaded most of them, but i cant remember all of them that were lost. if i could get most of those back as well, awesome

 

[Eusibius2]

(snip)

either way though, i dont see any way of getting my stuff back...there is a "backup" stored to my computer that has quite a few winzip files (.android_secure, boot, cache, data, datadata, recovery, system) and a MD5 file labeled nandroid.md5 but shows the size as 0kb, so theres nothing there

Wait - aren't these files the NAND backup files? Can someone confirm this? I thought they were.

Evan - check 2 things: file size of these should be a couple hundred MB. Mine are around 600MB combined. Also.. what is the file date? That's when the backup was taken. If the date is before you lost your data on your phone (not SD card), you could possibly get them back.

And FWIW - I agree, "install a rom, ?????, profit" isn't much help. It's the final answer, but doesn't explain anything. If you really are new to rooting (like you mentioned), then it means nothing. At the same time though, maybe you could have re-worded your quick response of "thanks for not answering my question."

 

[evan938]

Wait - aren't these files the NAND backup files? Can someone confirm this? I thought they were.

Evan - check 2 things: file size of these should be a couple hundred MB. Mine are around 600MB combined. Also.. what is the file date? That's when the backup was taken. If the date is before you lost your data on your phone (not SD card), you could possibly get them back.

And FWIW - I agree, "install a rom, ?????, profit" isn't much help. It's the final answer, but doesn't explain anything. If you really are new to rooting (like you mentioned), then it means nothing. At the same time though, maybe you could have re-worded your quick response of "thanks for not answering my question."

i thought they were part of the back up too...i had tried to run the back up 2x and it kept getting stuck at the same point. but i got SU on the night of the 29th, i got to where i was attempting the backup late night/early morning on the 29th/30th...after messing with it all day on the 30th, i got to the point where i found a copy of the stock rom and went back to it, and that night (30th) a buddy came over and we got it rooted and SR3.5 loaded up.

but the folder with everything in it is 617mb combined...file date is 8am on 1/30/11 (but it was time stamping everything off by a bit...that should read about midnight-1am)...you think theres any chance of recovering what was there previously? that'd be a-mazing if there is. lol

 

[nkk]

I have two points to make:

1) If it is ~600 MB combined, it should be ok. make a NAND backup of what you have now, then go through clockwork and flash the old backup. Run Titanim backup to make copies of all apps + app data, then reflash back to the new backup. Use Titanium to restore all of the missing but now backed up apps. Yay! PM me if you need more detailed help, or post here and someone will answer.

2) You have no business being rooted. Not because I am going to insult you and call you stupid (Chances are you are not, and the posted above me who did call you stupid is out of line), but because you rooted before learning about it, and that is really backwards. Rooting plays with core system files on your phone. It is not something that is done without background knowledge. I suggest you solve this problem, then read up as much as you can. There are real chances that your phone will brick during all of this (they are small, but still nonzero), and to prevent that it is your job to know what everything does. No need to get a comp sci degree, but at least know what is happening and why on a holistic level.

-Nkk

 

[evan938]

I have two points to make:

1) If it is ~600 MB combined, it should be ok. make a NAND backup of what you have now, then go through clockwork and flash the old backup. Run Titanim backup to make copies of all apps + app data, then reflash back to the new backup. Use Titanium to restore all of the missing but now backed up apps. Yay! PM me if you need more detailed help, or post here and someone will answer.

2) You have no business being rooted. Not because I am going to insult you and call you stupid (Chances are you are not, and the posted above me who did call you stupid is out of line), but because you rooted before learning about it, and that is really backwards. Rooting plays with core system files on your phone. It is not something that is done without background knowledge. I suggest you solve this problem, then read up as much as you can. There are real chances that your phone will brick during all of this (they are small, but still nonzero), and to prevent that it is your job to know what everything does. No need to get a comp sci degree, but at least know what is happening and why on a holistic level.

-Nkk

i get what you're saying, and really, the only reason i rooted it was to get rid of the junk VZW put on the phone...i dont plan on changing anything else...this is why i wanted to keep sense (or like i ended up doing, going with a sense rom)


so i guess i have a couple questions...if i do the backup via rom manager from where im at right now (or saturday when i have time to do this stuff), is it going to save info thats in my apps, notes i have in notepad, text messages in chompSMS, etc? if so, once i run this backup and try to install the old backup from the 30th, and then backup that stuff via titanium, once i go back to the most current backup ive made, will titanium show up as an app in that rom, if it wasn't there before i made the backup? or with titanium do i have to have like a user log in that i can just download the app and access whatever ive backed up? i hope what im asking makes sense. lol

 

[varkie]

*blows ref whistle*

evan938, Angels Punishment did answer your question. You sarcastically dismissed his good-intentioned reply and, in doing so, set off a mini flame war. 10 yard penalty.

Installing a new ROM is the easy way to get rid of the bloat.

If you like your phone the way it is (with Sense UI), then check out Virtuous. It's the closest thing to stock, just without the bloat.

As has been recommended, use ROM Manager. It makes it really easy to find, download, and install new ROMs. It will also back up what you've currently got so if you don't like the new ROM you can just go back to using what you were on before.

Contrast that with your original approach, which was to guess which files to remove, hoping not to delete the wrong file.

You stand a MUCH better chance of screwing things up if you go around removing items when you don't know what you're doing. Plus, you probably don't have a Nandroid backup (different from, and MUCH more comprehensive than, Titanium) to save your butt if you do delete the wrong thing.

I see that you've successfully loaded SkyRaider. Congrats. I'd still recommend that you pay for ROM Manager. Like I said, it makes it easy to create backups. And if/when you load one of these backups, it puts everything back exactly the way it was when you backed up - all apps are loaded, all widgets are in place on your homescreens, etc.

That way you can try out other ROMs to find something you really like and have the security of a comprehensive backup should anything go wrong.

Installing a ROM is not the easiest way to remove bloat and for many people they don't want or need one. Just shows the lack of knowledge on these forums lately. Also a lot of these custom ROMs add their own bloat to the phone. Running the paid version of Titanium Backup in Chuck Norris mode is the easiest way. You can also use Root Explorer (paid app) to delete the files from the system folder.

 

[varkie]

i get what you're saying, and really, the only reason i rooted it was to get rid of the junk VZW put on the phone...i dont plan on changing anything else...this is why i wanted to keep sense (or like i ended up doing, going with a sense rom)


so i guess i have a couple questions...if i do the backup via rom manager from where im at right now (or saturday when i have time to do this stuff), is it going to save info thats in my apps, notes i have in notepad, text messages in chompSMS, etc? if so, once i run this backup and try to install the old backup from the 30th, and then backup that stuff via titanium, once i go back to the most current backup ive made, will titanium show up as an app in that rom, if it wasn't there before i made the backup? or with titanium do i have to have like a user log in that i can just download the app and access whatever ive backed up? i hope what im asking makes sense. lol

A nand backup is a snapshot of your phone at the time it was taken, it should restore everything to the way it was at that exact moment in time.
You will have to redownload Titanium Backup again since it wasn't included in the old backup. Titanium backup saves its files to the sdcard and once you reinstall it you can get back the other apps and data. I also use MyBackup Pro which I find easier and better to use to backup data such as text logs and playlists which I have problems getting Titanium Backup to restore properly. My contacts and calendars are all stored via gmail so I never worry about them.

A word of warning about flashing ROMs through ROM Manager and in general. ROM Manager will usually ask if want to wipe data and cache before it installs a ROM, this removes all user data from your phone and after it install the ROM your back at square one. Typically you have to wipe data and cache when going from one different ROM to another, say a Sense ROM to an AOSP ROM, but not from one version to another say CM 6.0 to CM 6.1 and you can sometimes get away with it if your going from a Sense to another Sense based ROM. Best advice is to backup, backup and do more backups. Just in case one gets corrupted which does happen.

Edit: Just a word of caution when you use Titanium Backup to restore data it will overwrite what is curently on your phone, not add to it. So if you restore the nand backup your stuck with just that data. I don't believe there is going to be a way for you to merge the data from both your current ROM and the old one. You are going to end up with one or the other not both. I could be wrong as I never have been in your situation but maybe someone else know a way to do it.

 

[evan938]

thanks for the info...i'll wait to see if theres any other responses before diving into it...the info i have in my text messages now i can write down, as i dont think theres too much i need to be concerned with...before though, i had everything from when i got the phone in july until jan 30, so it was a lot lost

 

[Eusibius2]

thanks for the info...i'll wait to see if theres any other responses before diving into it...the info i have in my text messages now i can write down, as i dont think theres too much i need to be concerned with...before though, i had everything from when i got the phone in july until jan 30, so it was a lot lost

FYI - there's an app for that. Why write down info (with your hand??? what's that??? LOL) when you can run an app that will backup SMS info. Check out AppBrain, there are a few.

 

[evan938]

FYI - there's an app for that. Why write down info (with your hand??? what's that??? LOL) when you can run an app that will backup SMS info. Check out AppBrain, there are a few.

i guess i was looking at it from the point that he said he didnt think i could merge info from my old rom and new. if ive only got 75-100 texts, and maybe <5 have some kind of info i need, i'll jot it down...theres not a lot... if somehow they will merge together, i wont worry about it.

 

[varkie]

The problem with every backup app I've seen so far is that it will overwrite your exisitng data, including appbrain. You need a program that will merge the data. So if you backup your existing data then did the nand restore of your old ROM and ran the backup all you would have is those few texts that were backed up. Now you might be able to some how edit the file its stored in to retrieve it but like you said its probably easier just to write it down. Maybe thats something Titanium Backup will eventually incorporate into their program.

Just another word of caution once you do the nand recovery and restore stuff through Titanium backup. Don't restore any system data as that will gork your phone as its the system data for your current ROM and its not compatible with the backed up one. Did this myself once and had to do another restore. App data is fine system data is a no.