One thing I learned about 'cleaning up un-needed apps', make sure to not uninstall Microsoft or Windows related apps or (I have an Hewlett Packard PC) anything that came pre-installed with your PC via the particular brand of PC you bought. I have plenty of junk apps that sound third-party (or 4th party) that I never use like Cinema Now Media Manager, CyberLink DVD Suite Deluxe, LightScribe System Software, etc., blah blah blah.
It's all junk to me. But when I started uninstalling a few of them some very wonky stuff began happening to my display and audio and system. You know the massive Hive. And then there's shared dll's and common files, etc.