I used a program's uninstall feature to remove it. However, it looks like it has just removed the listing from Programs and the icon from the Desktop,because I still see it in the Registry and Program Files.
I will leave the Registry alone,but can I safely delete the associated Program Files?
What is the best way to more thoroughly remove a program right off the bat?
Thanks for your help.

What's the program?

Sorry. System Mechanic.

As far as I'm aware, System mechanic should unintall properly in the normal way. The registry entries it will have left are unlikely to matter much. What files has it left behind in its program files folder?

Program Files/System Mechanic.

BACKUP
REGISTRY BACKUP
SPYTHON
Startup
System snapshot Data
Undo
Web Update
Duplicate Files txt
Kept Cookies txt
Manual: Dupes Log txt
Junk Log txt
Privacy Log txt
Registry Log txt
Shortcuts Log txt
Spyhunter Log txt
Netbooster Log txt
New Duplicate File txt
Options.xml
sguard.dat

Just logs and options.

You may or may not find the registry backups useful at some point, or not. Otherwise, just delete it all. The application is uninstalled

Thanks,Spike!

Installed/unistalled...stalled!

Far too many programs fail to uninstall properly. The usual quick workaround (for your future reference) is install it again then uninstall it again.

Norton's wonderful (not!) programs are good at tripping up over this too - they see their own (uninstalled) registry entries and refuse to install (again) until they are first unistalled (which you can't do). Catch-22.

That's why there are many, many pages of norton site devoted to get rid!

Now you're telline me System Mechanic (a Norton me-too) suffers the same symptoms. I despair.

I suspect system mechanic does it for two reasons. One being that you often need to uninstall what you have in order to upgrade to the latest version, and the second is simply to keep logs and settings should you wish to upgrade or re-install.