wumply,
See Richard Urban's post. ;-)
OK, I took about an hour typing this up this morning.
Let's take for an example, Ad-Aware SE Personal.
What happens if you delete the unwise.exe file from C:\Program
Files\Lavasoft\Ad-Aware SE Personal?
From Lavasoft help....
<quote>
[[If you wish to remove our product, try these alternatives:
1. Click "uninstall Ad-Aware" in the Lavasoft folder of your start menu
2. If it does not work, open your control panel, click add/remove programs
and locate Ad-Aware SE
3. If it still does not work, locate and run (double-click) the file
"unwise.exe" (the .exe might not be shown). It should be found in
C:\program files\Lavasoft\Ad-Aware SE Personal\
<end quote>
-----
Okie dokie, here we go.
1. "uninstall Ad-Aware" is probably a shortcut to C:\Program
Files\Lavasoft\Ad-Aware SE Personal\unwise.exe. The shortcut won't work
because unwise.exe has been deleted.
2. Isn't going to work either because...
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\
Ad-Aware SE Personal\UninstallString is going to point to C:\Program
Files\Lavasoft\Ad-Aware SE Personal\unwise.exe and unwise.exe is not going
to be there. I SWAGGED this, I uninstalled it a while back, but I bet
that I am pretty close.
You can see how 3 isn't going to work, there is no unwise.exe to double
click.
Then you'll have to post here and ask, "How do I uninstall Ad-Aware SE
Personal?"
And someone will post something like these...
How to manually uninstall an application
http://www.cryer.co.uk/brian/windows/howto_manually_uninstall.htm
Uninstall Programs Manually
http://www.theeldergeek.com/manually_uninstall_programs.htm
-----
Yes, Add or Remove Programs tells the program's own uninstaller to do so.
That registry entry that was mentioned earlier...
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\some
program\UninstallString
The value data for the UninstallString is the path to the program that is
used to uninstall the program. UninstallString is what Add or Remove
Programs looks for to uninstall a particular program. Some programs may
not have an actual uninstaller. HijackThis.exe and WINZIP32.EXE, for
example, both use an /uninstall switch.
Normally you need to use the original install/uninstall package to remove
software. Wise/Unwise or whatever the software developer used. I figure
that it's a low bid deal, whatever is cheapest.
unins000.exe is another one, related to the Inno installation service.
Inno Setup is a free installer for Windows programs. uninstall.exe is
another one, I don't know who makes that one.
There are some third party uninstaller programs that are supposed to be
able to remove anything. I know nothing about any of them.
spuninst.exe is another one, this is a Windows Service Pack Uninstaller.
msiexec.exe or the Windows Installer is another one. msiexec.exe uses an
/uninstall switch, msiexec.exe has a boatload of switches.
*.msi files are Windows Installer Files or Windows Installer packages.
Windows Installer can uninstall any program it previously installed.
Windows Installer supposedly removes everything that it installed. I
don't believe that myself.
Add or Remove Programs provides users with a single user interface for
managing and maintaining their programs. The Currently installed programs
list in the Add or Remove Programs tool lists all of the
Windows-compatible programs that have an uninstall program or feature.
As mentioned previously, UninstallString is the key deal. Windows
Installer-based programs also include a Maintenance Mode option. With
this option, you can add or remove features, change the installation
state of the program or of individual components, or repair and restore
the installation.
When software is installed, depending on the software, there are files
installed on the machine that might be placed in %windir%\System32 folder,
the Start Menu or anywhere besides the %programfiles% folder, all over the
machine. Most software adds registry entries, Norton is a pig about this.
Speaking of Norton, you need special uninstaller software to even begin to
get rid of that sow.
Just look through an install.log to see what kind of things are added
when a program is installed.
--
Hope this helps. Let us know.
Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User
In
wumply said:
Wes...a follow-up...well, an afterthought.
WHY would it be difficult to uninstall a program had I removed
UNWISE.EXE? I don't suppose allj programs come with that particular
program. Does every program have its own uninstaller of one type or
another.? If so, does that mean that Add/Remove itself does not
uninstall programs - that it only tells the program own uninstaller to
do so? wumply
