Hi coldav
coldav wrote:a pointless trawl trying to find what I do own
What you do and the results would differ depending on your OS/Platform and DAW.
1) Some DAWs give you options to manage/customise plugin lists. For example, in Logic Pro X, I've 'hidden' all of the TR4 version plugins from view when I open a plugin menu. They're still on the system in case I want to open an old project that uses them, but they don't get in the way on new projects.
2) If you can't do that, you can hunt down where the installer has placed the relevant plugin files (VST/AU/AAX etc) and manually delete the ones you don't want. Your DAW will then not scan them so they won't appear in a plugin list. STRONG CAVEAT - this is not something that IKM officially supports as, if you subsequently went to trial or buy one of the plugins you have deleted, the process would not work and you would have to reinstall the whole package again.
coldav wrote:On boot up, my daw takes forever scanning everything
This however, is a different issue to just being annoyed by un-owned plugins. Again, it depends on OS and DAW, but if you're seeing as issue with long start up times it could mean that something else is causing the problem. If you don't change anything on a system, a DAW should not need time to rescan plugins as it checks a preference file and only rescans when it sees that something has been added that is not on that pref file.
Perhaps if you have an older machine, with a spinning HD or minimal RAM this could be the reason you are seeing a slow load time.