Missing items in Add Remove programs

[Bill]

I have XP Pro

When I opened Add Remove programs the list was about 80
items long. Included were all of the XP updates and all
of the programs on the computer. When I opened A & R
programs today all of the Windows items were gone as well
as most of the other programs. There were just 22
programs left. How do I get the list back to showing
everything that should be there? I did not delete any of
the missing programs.

Thanks for your help.

Bill

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

All Installed Programs May Not Be Displayed in the Add/Remove Programs Tool
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q240/3/48.asp

I have fixed several of these recently for others.
The problem will occur in these two situations:

1. The uninstall keyname for an application is greater than 63
characters.
Solution: Rename the keyname.
e.g. this is invalid
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234]

2. The DisplayName for the key is greater than 63 characters.
Solution: Shorten DisplayName
e.g. this is invalid
"DisplayName"="1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234"

If you need a second opinion, export the key to a text file and email
it to me.

*** Note that the invalid entry that can cause this is not necessarily
connected with the ones missing so you must check all entries.