after restoring XP, am unable to uninstall programs previously uninstalled

[niteowl]

Hi all,

I just restored to a previous point to fix a video codec problem, and
when booted up, found a few programicons on the desktop that had
previously been removed, they also are listed in the Add/Remove
program but will not let me remove them saying the uninst.dat file is
missing and cannot remove..

I went into windows explorer and manually removed the folders to the
programs I no longer want, so now how do I remove the listing from the
Add/Remove list? Is there a powertoy for XP that will do this like
the one in Win98??

thanks,
niteowl

 

[niteowl]

Just an update, I was able to finally remove all but one of the
programs listed in the Add/Remove list by deleting the folders and
then when it couldn't find it I was offered the option to remove it
from the list... however the NTI CD & DVD Maker doesn't give me that
option.. it looks to start to run the uninstall wizard, but only gets
to about 40% on the progress bar, then just goes away... the listing
is still there..

Is there somewhere in the registry that I can delete this iten in the
Add/Remove list? I did a search for "NTI CD & DVD" in the registry,
and removed a few items that it found but nothing related to the
Add/Remove program.

Any help??

thanks,
niteowl

 

[Bert Kinney]

Hi Niteowl,

When the system was restored the monitored files and registry settings
of the previously installed applications were restored also. Any of
the non monitored files of there's applications were not restored
causing the uninstall to fail. The best way to completely remove these
application files is to reinstall the app and then uninstall it via
the add/remove programs utility, that is as long as that was not the
app that prompted the restore. You could also go back to an earlier
restore point before that app was installed, but this will depend on
how long ago it was installed and what other apps and setting would be
affected. Otherwise you would have to manually remove the files and
registry settings. That is of course after creating another restore in
case the manual removal causes problems.

To manually remove entries from the add/remove utility follow the
instruction from Kelly's site.
Add and Remove -Removing Invalid Entries in the Add/Remove Programs
Tool
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_a.htm#addremove

A good practice is to create a restore point before installing any new
program, just in case.

For more information on System Restore take a look here.
All About System Restore in WinXP
http://home.earthlink.net/~mvp_bert/index.html

 

[niteowl]

Thank You, that did the trick.

and thanks for reminding me about creating those restore points before
installing... I get a little lax when things are going along too well
for a while.. I restored to my oldest availble point, and then
spent about an hour updating all the stuff it negated... but it did
fix the problem I was trying to correct.

so I'll try to remain a little more diligent from this point forward.

thanks again,

niteowl

 

[Bert Kinney]

Glad to see you have it sorted out.