If I'm not mistaken, you've completely misunderstood my comment. And as far as I can tell, your comment is making the opposite point that you think it does. I

If I'm not mistaken, you've completely misunderstood my comment. And as far as I can tell, your comment is making the opposite point that you think it does. I didn't "acquire the knowledge" from a third-party; as I describe in detail in my comment, I figured it out through two minutes of experimentation with software I didn't mind risking (what you call "inference and logical deduction"). In fact, you're committing exactly the error you're being so dismissive of! Theoretical knowledge that installed software may retain hidden connections to their installers did not comport with my initial experiment. And indeed, I have never once encountered an issue deleting installer files. There are very possibly edge cases that my experimentation didn't cover. But the path of experimentation and deduction put me in a position far superior to my incurious friend's, without any observed costs in the years since. This is part of the power of empiricism: I may be concerned with a subset of the situation (eg a certain type of installer) that isn't well-formulated in the theoretical question, but that is the relevant domain for my decision.