How to completely remove and reinstall Pale Moon

[Moonchild]

Sometimes, things can go horribly wrong, e.g. because of a power outage, hard disk problem, bad memory stick or malware messing up Pale Moon and/or its user profile.

Here is a run-down of how to completely remove Pale Moon, rescue your bookmarks, and do a clean re-install if uninstalling/reinstalling the normal way fails.

First, grab bookmark backups to save your bookmarks if you want:
In Windows Vista/7:
C:\Users\{your user name}\AppData\Roaming\Moonchild Productions\Pale Moon\Profiles\{xxxxxxx}.default\bookmarkbackups\
In Windows XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\{your user name}\Application Data\Moonchild Productions\Pale Moon\Profiles\{xxxxxxx}.default\bookmarkbackups\
this folder has a number of dated .json files which are bookmark backups to be imported at the end. Pale Moon creates these backups by default, automatically.

You may also want to grab your login data (user names and passwords) from the same profile location by copying the files key3.db and signons.sqlite to a safe place. These files are usually never corrupted.

To completely remove and reinstall "clean", do this:

1. Go to the Pale Moon installation folder:
   On 32-bit windows or for Pale Moon x64: C:\Program Files\Pale Moon
   On 64-bit windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Pale Moon
   and delete the entire Pale Moon folder.
2. Go to
   Windows Vista/7: C:\Users\{you user name}\Appdata\Roaming
   Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\{your user name}\Application Data
   and remove the folder "Moonchild productions"
3. Do the same for
   Windows Vista/7: C:\Users\{you user name}\Appdata\Local
   Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\{your user name}\Local Settings\Application Data
4. Remove any start menu/desktop icons that are still there
5. Download the installer from http://www.palemoon.org/download-ng.shtml or http://www.palemoon.org/palemoon-x64.shtml
6. Install Pale Moon using the installer

You will have a "blank slate" Pale Moon now.
You can restore your bookmarks by going to Bookmarks -> Organize bookmarks, then button Import and Backup
-> restore -> choose file... and load the .json file of the date of your choice you saved.

If you saved your login data, you can restore these files by copying them back to the newly created profile folder, most easily found by going to help -> troubleshooting information, then clicking "Show folder" under Profile. Close the browser before you copy these files back to the proper location.

[Night Wing]

Although I've never had a problem with Pale Moon, thanks for the instuctions should something go wrong.