Add/Remove Programs

[Mike Schmieg]

I have suddenly lost the option to repair or remove
programs from the Add/Remove Program module in the
control panel on one of my XP Pro machines. This was
present a couple of weeks ago, but now the buttons are
missing. Does anyone have any idea what could have caused
this and how to remedy it. The only user has
Administrative access.

 

[Kelly]

Add or Remove Edits: Lines 188, 208 (right hand side) and 323:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Troubleshooting, Removing and/or Cleaning Add or Remove Programs
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_a.htm#addremove

 

[Mike Schmieg]

When I get home tonight, I will try out a couple of those
registry edits to see if they work. Most of the
information seemed to be on adding and removing program
entries from Add/Remove rather than enabling the buttons,
but I think that two of the registry edits might be
applicable. I added those pages to my favorites. Thanks.

 

[Mike Schmieg]

I tried the registry patches with no luck and the
articles referenced didn't really apply to this problem.
It's interesting. All of the programs are listed, along
with the frequency of use and the last time used, but the
Modify/Remove buttons are missing. I have gone through
the component services and found nothing. I even ran a
couple of tweak programs which have removing and adding
the buttons as an option and they had no effect.

Guess that I'm going to have to do a repair function from
the Windows CD. Thanks for trying.

 

[Kelly]

Hi Mike,

This has been posted before by many others but a common glue has not been
found as of yet. Would be very interested in troubleshooting this with you.





I tried the registry patches with no luck and the
articles referenced didn't really apply to this problem.
It's interesting. All of the programs are listed, along
with the frequency of use and the last time used, but the
Modify/Remove buttons are missing. I have gone through
the component services and found nothing. I even ran a
couple of tweak programs which have removing and adding
the buttons as an option and they had no effect.

Guess that I'm going to have to do a repair function from
the Windows CD. Thanks for trying.

 

[Mike Schmieg]

Kelly, you're going to love this one. That tweak
partially fixed the problem. Now some of the program
entries have the button and some of them don't. This
indicates to me that those now lacking the button
probably have corrupted uninstall data in the registry.
But it is s a big improvement over the previous situation.

---- Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: Kelly [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2004 6:46 PM
To: (e-mail address removed)
Subject: Re: Add/Remove Programs


Hi Michael,

Thanks for the feedback. Try the edit on line 337 (right hand side)
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

If this helps, post this update to the thread we have going in the
newsgroup. If not, I will add it when I get there in several hours.

Good luck and keep me posted.

All the Best,
Kelly

Microsoft-MVP Windows® XP
2004 Windows MVP "Winny" Award

Troubleshooting Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com




----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael M. Schmieg" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2004 10:29 AM
Subject: Add/Remove Programs


You said you would be interested in troubleshooting this with
me, but I'm at
a loss of where to go next. I tried the registry patches that
you directed
me to, with no luck. The MS article dealt with the Japanese version of
Windows which I don't run. I ran FreshUI which has an option
to show the
Remove/Modify buttons or hide them and toggled the switch
both ways with no
luck. I've checked the services to see if there was anything
that might be
affecting this and found nothing. I even copied appwiz.cpl
from one of my
other machines to see if that might do it, but no.

This is my daughter's machine and I suspect that she loaded
some weird stuff
now and then which screwed things up. It also had a problem a
few weeks back
with the wireless connection in which it reported that TCP/IP Network
Transport was not loaded and I had to perform a System
Restore to get that
back online. She is leaving for college this weekend with a
brand new Dell
Inspiron 8600 with the 2 mhz Dothan processor in it, so she
has pretty much
abandoned the desktop to destroy the setup in the new machine
<grin>. I plan
to convert this machine to a home backup for my wife's and my
laptops which
we can access through the home network and through the
internet so I will
probably end up just wiping the hard drive and reinstalling
from scratch. My
daughter did want me to keep some of her stuff on it, but I can always
reinstall her stuff and restore the data from the DAT tape
drive on it. But
this has me intrigued and I've been playing with it rather
than take the
easy way out.

As a side note, since I moved her PDA from this machine to
the new one, I
tried to uninstall ActiveSync using Norton Uninstall. It searched all
partitions and supposedly found the files and data to
uninstall the program,
but, after it ran, the program was still there and running. I
checked the
registry and, apparently, no entries had been deleted. The only thing
removed was the entry in the start menu. So I suspect, with all of the
playing around she has done on it in the last couple of
years, that the
registry is pretty much scrambled and I'm not sure exactly
where to look for
the problem. All the things that I do know about appear fine.

Didn't mean to write a book here, but I thought that if

I

told you what I
had tried, you might have a better idea of the nature of the
problem, if not
to help me, to help future sufferers. I won't be doing

a

 

[Kelly]

Thanks, Mike.

Update: This seemed to have been confused between the Change/Remove button
(bottom right of each installed program) within Add or Remove and the Change
or Remove Programs Tab (per se').

Restore Change or Remove Programs Tab (Line 337) Right hand side
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Work still in progress.......






Kelly, you're going to love this one. That tweak
partially fixed the problem. Now some of the program
entries have the button and some of them don't. This
indicates to me that those now lacking the button
probably have corrupted uninstall data in the registry.
But it is s a big improvement over the previous situation.

---- Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: Kelly [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2004 6:46 PM
To: (e-mail address removed)
Subject: Re: Add/Remove Programs


Hi Michael,

Thanks for the feedback. Try the edit on line 337 (right hand side)
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

If this helps, post this update to the thread we have going in the
newsgroup. If not, I will add it when I get there in several hours.

Good luck and keep me posted.

All the Best,
Kelly

Microsoft-MVP Windows® XP
2004 Windows MVP "Winny" Award

Troubleshooting Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com




----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael M. Schmieg" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2004 10:29 AM
Subject: Add/Remove Programs


You said you would be interested in troubleshooting this with
me, but I'm at
a loss of where to go next. I tried the registry patches that
you directed
me to, with no luck. The MS article dealt with the Japanese version of
Windows which I don't run. I ran FreshUI which has an option
to show the
Remove/Modify buttons or hide them and toggled the switch
both ways with no
luck. I've checked the services to see if there was anything
that might be
affecting this and found nothing. I even copied appwiz.cpl
from one of my
other machines to see if that might do it, but no.

This is my daughter's machine and I suspect that she loaded
some weird stuff
now and then which screwed things up. It also had a problem a
few weeks back
with the wireless connection in which it reported that TCP/IP Network
Transport was not loaded and I had to perform a System
Restore to get that
back online. She is leaving for college this weekend with a
brand new Dell
Inspiron 8600 with the 2 mhz Dothan processor in it, so she
has pretty much
abandoned the desktop to destroy the setup in the new machine
<grin>. I plan
to convert this machine to a home backup for my wife's and my
laptops which
we can access through the home network and through the
internet so I will
probably end up just wiping the hard drive and reinstalling
from scratch. My
daughter did want me to keep some of her stuff on it, but I can always
reinstall her stuff and restore the data from the DAT tape
drive on it. But
this has me intrigued and I've been playing with it rather
than take the
easy way out.

As a side note, since I moved her PDA from this machine to
the new one, I
tried to uninstall ActiveSync using Norton Uninstall. It searched all
partitions and supposedly found the files and data to
uninstall the program,
but, after it ran, the program was still there and running. I
checked the
registry and, apparently, no entries had been deleted. The only thing
removed was the entry in the start menu. So I suspect, with all of the
playing around she has done on it in the last couple of
years, that the
registry is pretty much scrambled and I'm not sure exactly
where to look for
the problem. All the things that I do know about appear fine.

Didn't mean to write a book here, but I thought that if I
told you what I
had tried, you might have a better idea of the nature of the
problem, if not
to help me, to help future sufferers. I won't be doing a
fresh install until
next weekend at the earliest since this weekend I'll be driving her to
college. Thanks for your efforts though.