How To Uninstall An Application That Has No Uninstall Program

How To Uninstall An Application That Has No Uninstall Program

If you want to uninstall an application that has no uninstall program and it is not listed in the Add/Remove applet of Control Panel (or that uninstall doesn't work), then just delete the directory/files.

Make a backup of the registry

Shutdown the application, if it is running (If WinNT+ check also for services)

Search the registry for any references to the directory where the application resides, and remove them

Search the registry for any references to the name of the application, and remove them

Start Regedit and drill down to :

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER \Software \]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \Software \]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \Software \Microsoft \Windows \CurrentVersion \SharedDLLs]

Rename the directory in which the application was installed in the first place

Reboot and if everything goes well, then delete the renamed directory

Use Explorer to to remove the entries from the Start Menu in either

C:\Documents and Folders\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\ and/or
C:\Documents and Folders\(your username)\Start Menu\Programs\

If there is an entry in the Add/Remove list, start regedit go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

Locate the entry and delete it. If the app has a service, edit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services

and scroll down till you locate it. Then delete it. If this app starts automatically and there is no entry in the StartUp folder(s), then use Regedt32 to edit:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Windows

Aaron Stebner discribes another method in his Aaron Stebner's WebLog

Also worth to check : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314481 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/Q247501 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/Q247515 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/Q290301

Add Remove Program Cleaner 2 :This program allows you to clean up the Add/Remove programs list in the control panel. It should only be used to remove entries that are broken and cannot be removed by running the uninstall program.

Add-Remove-Program-Cleaner |Sys Req:Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista | Freeware | 940KB