Black Columns in Add & Remove Programmes

[Guest]

I have about 15 programmes in add and remove programmes and then the
equivalent of about a hundred entries shown as black columns with the rest of
my installed programmes at the bottom of these columns. Any suggestions of
how to get rid of them?

 

[Malke]

I have about 15 programmes in add and remove programmes and then the
equivalent of about a hundred entries shown as black columns with the
rest of my installed programmes at the bottom of these columns. Any
suggestions of how to get rid of them?

Go to MVP Kelly Theriot's site here:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm

Click on "A" and then on the "A" page scroll down to the Add/Remove
Programs section to find your issue/solution.

Malke

 

[Vanguard]

I have about 15 programmes in add and remove programmes and then the
equivalent of about a hundred entries shown as black columns with the rest
of
my installed programmes at the bottom of these columns. Any suggestions of
how to get rid of them?

Try the following in a DOS shell at a command prompt:

sfc /scannow

This runs the System File Check. If that doesn't work, the problem is
probably a program that put an invalid string in the Uninstall registry key
for its entry in that list. What happens is that you will see a program in
Add/Remove Programs, a black stripped area, and then more programs listed.
The program that would be listed between them is the one screwing up the
display of the list. You could dig through the registry to see which one it
was (under the
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall"
key) but using X-Setup might be easier. Go read
http://forumz.tomshardware.com/software/Add-Remove-Programs-empty-space-ftopict170295.html
which was found simply by Google searching on '+"Add/Remove Programs"
+black'.

As I recall, the problem was the DisplayIcon value was negative for the
program entry effecting the weird display problem in the Add/Remove Programs
applet. When you run Add/Remove Programs, notice it displays an icon next
to each program. A negative icon index is invalid. The icon index should
be a positive number to select which icon from the program to use when
showing an icon for it. Using regedit, you might find an uninstall entry
for a program which had:

"DisplayIcon"="<program>,-1"

Try changing it from -1 to 1. If there is no number, or if there is no
DisplayIcon value, the default icon is used for the program.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555364/en-us

You could just delete the DisplayIcon data item and use the generic one for
that program.

 

[Guest]

Thank you for responding. I have tried Kellys and followed all the steps but
the black columns are still there

:

MWRhino wrote:

I have about 15 programmes in add and remove programmes and then the
equivalent of about a hundred entries shown as black columns with the rest of
my installed programmes at the bottom of these columns. Any suggestions of
how to get rid of them?

Go to MVP Kelly Theriot's site here:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm

Click on "A" and then on the "A" page scroll down to the Add/Remove Programs
section to find your issue/solution.

Malke

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

See this, from David Candy

<Quote>
HKEY LOCAL MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
Look under here in the registry, one of the icons have a negative
number. Change it to a positive and most files hace a 1 icon. Windows
will try to guess the icon if you remove the entry altogether.
</Quote>

If that does not apply to your situation, then download my script below and
run it. Post the results here. This script lists all the negative icon
references present in the registry, and sends them to a log file.

Script
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/utils/ARPNegCheck.vbs
(Lists all negative icon references in Add/Remove)

Technical details at
The Old New Thing : Why does Add or Remove Programs show a large blank
space?:
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2005/05/26/422076.aspx

MyUninstaller: Alternative to the standard Windows Add / Remove module:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/myuninst.html

--
Ramesh, Microsoft MVP
Windows XP Shell/User

Windows XP Troubleshooting
http://www.winhelponline.com


I have about 15 programmes in add and remove programmes and then the
equivalent of about a hundred entries shown as black columns with the rest
of
my installed programmes at the bottom of these columns. Any suggestions of
how to get rid of them?