| Q: Why can't I uninstall a program in the Add/Remove Programs list? A: An installation log should be created when you install a program, and the program name should be added to the uninstall list. Hopefully when you want to uninstall the program some time later the log file is still available. If you deleted the files in the directory folder where it was living, it isn't available for the uninstall. In some cases even when you uninstall properly the entry still stays in the list, leading you to believe that the program is still on the hard drive, when in fact only the entry in the list is still there. When you try to uninstall such a program, you get an error message because the actual program is nowhere to be found. If you can't uninstall from the uninstall list, the next best way to uninstall is from an uninstall icon in the program's folder. In most cases if uninstalling from the uninstall list didn't work, uninstalling from the icon won't either. That leaves one option, which is to use Explorer to delete the directory folder where the program is living. I do not recommend the use of "uninstaller" types of programs to uninstall programs that cannot be uninstalled from the list. Windows shares lots of files among many programs. If you accidentally delete one of the files, it breaks all of the other programs that share the file. I've found that folks are better off leaving a few extra files on the hard drive than risking deleting a shared file. |
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