The settings in unreal, that you make when you set up your game, your raw key binds, favorites and all other personal settings are retained in two files. All the maps, sounds and mods you have downloaded are kept in the cache file.
This is what happens when you uninstall unreal. It appears to me that the uninstall removes everything that was installed by original installation, leaving the maps, textures, cache, and other files you have either downloaded or installed since the original installation. Normally this if fine except if these happen to be the source of the corruption, the new installation will not help the problem you are having. Normally try a normal uninstall first and if that dont fix the problem uninstall and delete the whole unreal directory.
I suggest a normal uninstall and re installation as the first thing you try provided you save a couple of files as depicted here.
The personal settings are contained in two files in the unreal system folder called Unreal.ini and user.ini files. These are text files and can be opened with note pad to insure you have located the right two files. I suggest that all players do the following, if you dont want to have to set up unreal each time you install it.
Right click on the desk top and make a new folder and call it My Unreal Settings. Then with windows explorer open the c drive and the unreal folder and navigate to the system folder. In the system folder locate and copy and paste unreal.ini and user.ini to your saved settings folder you just made. Assuming you have winzip installed, open the cache folder and at the top of the window select edit then select all. Then at the top of the window select file and winzip and add to cache zip file. This will make a zip file of your cache files, and it may take a few minutes depending on your cache size. This zip file will be inside the cache folder. I suggest after its zipped you right click on the zip file in the cache folder and select cut and then paste it into your saved settings folder on the desk top. At this point i suggest you save your saved settings folder somewhere off your hard drive, like a cd.
Now when you have to re install unreal completely, including the deletion of left behind folders, you can recover your cache and personal settings in a jiffy. Under a normal install, all you have to do is to copy and paste the unreal.ini file and the user file to the system folder and unreal will be set up as before. In the extreme case you will have to use winzip to recover the cache and unzip it to the freshly installed cache folder. Do this now while your unreal is running right because it will be restored as it is now. Dont want to wait till you have a problem and its to late.
![Idea :idea:](./images/smilies/icon_idea.gif)
I also suggest you copy and paste your cache files to a special save folder occasionaly as well. Save any custom skins you use as well.
Sparky