Uninstall it yourself

32-digit number from registry:
Command to use for uninstalling:

This information has been visited 1518 times since March 2008.

Some details

[2008/03/13] I've had a problem in my Add/Remove Programs I could not find "Remove" button on some items. This was the problem when I tried to install the new version of the product that did not support reinstall--I had to deinstall the previous version and could not do it. Searching the internet found many cleaner programs, but I did not want to use them because they are mostly used for... well, you know.

So sniffing through registry I've noticed that some programs have MSIEXEC /X in their UninstallString value, but the ID they are installed under is not the same as the one that is given to MSIEXEC. Carefully looking at the IDs I've noticed that these IDs are actually the same characters just rearranged positions. Once I figured that out, I could deinstall all of the programs that caused me trouble. By reading below, you too should be able to use the same method.

So here's how to uninstall programs under Add/Remove Programs that don't have Remove button:

  1. Determine the name of the product that don't have Remove button. Example:"Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 1.0 SP3 Developer"
  2. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products in Registry
  3. Search for your product with CTRL-F: paste the name of problematic program: "Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 1.0 SP3 Developer"
  4. Normally you get result very fast. The product appears under: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\060135C6BF4869F4F83392FD206023BE. Under that key, "ProductName" has the value of the name of your program.
  5. Note the last portion of registry path: 060135C6BF4869F4F83392FD206023BE On your system, this big hex number will be different depending on program.
  6. Rearrange the positions of characters: 060135C6BF4869F4F83392FD206023BE becomes 6C531060-84FB-4F96-8F33-29DF020632EB. To do this you need to notice 32 characters in input string, then write them in form 8chars-4chars-4chars-4chars-12chars like this: 8th7th6th5th4th3rd2nd1st-12th11th10th9th-16th15th14th13th-18th17th20th19th-22nd21st24th23rd26th25th28th27th30th29th32nd31st
  7. Put the rearranged output in "msiexec /x {rearranged}", example: c:\...\>msiexec /x {6C531060-84FB-4F96-8F33-29DF020632EB}
  8. It asks you to confirm and then deinstalls your product. Voilla!
  9. Note: for your problematic program, the big 32-digit number will be different. You can use the form above--put the number in first field, press Uninstall! button and it will paste a command that you can execute in command line in order to deinstall the program! Good luck.

Troubleshooting

If you can't find the big 32-digit number, try searching in registry at other places. If you find the string at another path that does not have ID but has "UninstallString", copy the value of UninstallString to command line and execute that and it should deinstall. I did not run into any other problems (the above procedure worked for 100% of my programs), so I am not aware of other tricks.