Uninstalled all ASUS software from system but still see stuff running! HOW TO REMOVE?

[piratino]

I am in the need to completely delete anything related to ASUS from my system as I would like to clean it from any leftovers or unused files from uninstalled ASUS software I have removed.
The story is that I really would like to start all over again with a system free from any related ASUS software, and then decide which ASUS software to install after a deep understanding of which I might really need.

I had tried and installed the ASUS Armoury Crate & AURA Creator app, the ASUS AI Suite III app and the My ASUS app, and now I have uninstalled all of them with their official ASUS uninstall tool.

In all of these directories down here I still see some leftovers related to ASUS:

C:\ProgramData\ASUS
C:\Program Files (x86)\ASUS
C:\Program Files\ASUS
C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Local\ASUS
C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\asu ssci2.inf_amd64_0bc4d1cbbe22f0db
C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\rog kb.inf_amd64_7b02b00ea166ec76
C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\rog ms.inf_amd64_1d3b9add1418e6f7

I also see a lot of ASUS services running at system startup, and I really can't understand why of all this as I don't have any "ASUS" related entry in my installed apps in Windows.
I have also checked that using Ashampoo Uninstaller and Your Uninstaller apps, and both do not show me any ASUS related software installed in my system, so I guess that Windows is thinking that everything related to ASUS is uninstalled...but something is still there!!

Regarding my drivers, I only install MoKiChU's drivers packages, and they are clean from any ASUS related software. He confirmed me that his drivers do not install/copy any ASUS software or services into the system.


I was thinking to make the cleanup in a way that I could eventually revert back in case of need.

I was thinking to stop all ASUS services and disable them from startup using the Autoruns64 app (only disable them, not delete -- in this way I could restore/activate them back if needed).
Same thing for the ASUS directories: once system booted with no ASUS services, I could try to "move" those directories to some safe place, for future restoration in case of need.

Please let me know if there are some other ways in cleaning everything up...that of course would not involve in reinstalling Windows (as I can't do it).


Thank you in advance.

[piratino]

Any help?
Thanks in advance.

[xeromist]

Some services might be installed by Windows Update because you have ASUS hardware. I wouldn't recommend stopping services randomly without knowing what they do. If you aren't sure about a particular service you can Google it or try searching here on the forum. Someone may have documented what it does.

[oilcan]

I'm going to try to do a clean windows install and obtain drivers without Armoury Crate. This is a new build so there is nothing on here other than driver and windows updates. I'm hoping this will remove all the Asus bloatware that was added during my initial install. I could have lived with most of the Asus stuff but there was one service called Asus Comm Services (atkexComSvc.exe) that would use 20% of my i9-13900K CPU.

[oilcan]

Finished the clean install. No Asus bloatware discovered. I avoided Asus's support site for drivers but if I could not find them from Intel or through MS directly or through a windows update I only unzipped the driver folder onto a thumb drive and then went to device manager and updated each item that required an update by pointing to the appropriate folder that contained the driver. If you extract everything onto the thumb drive do not run the ASUS executable. Doing this will most likely add all the stuff you were trying to avoid to begin with.