Remove Uninstalled Programs still in Add Remove Programs

Posted on December 13, 2009 at 5:11 am

Sometimes even after you’ve uninstalled a program, its entry still remains listed in the Add or Remove Programs list under currently installed programs.

As time goes on, it’s easy for you to forget what programs you’ve uninstalled, so when you see the entries in Add/Remove, you’ll assume the programs are still on your hard disk, but when you try to uninstall them you’ll receive an error message – because the program has already been uninstalled.

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Having experienced this problem with many computers, it’s just crazy to maintain if not cleaned early.

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There’s an easy way to remove those entries “lost” or stuck entries in Add/Remove. Open the Registry Editor (type in regedit into the search box) and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

Look for the entry of the uninstalled program (it will be the program name) and delete it. In some instances, instead of the program name, you’ll see an entry like this: {1451DE6B-ABE1-4F62-BE9A-B363A17588A2}. In that case, look at the DisplayName and Contact subkeys under that entry.

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It has the name of the program and the company that created the program, Broadcom Controller in the example above. When you find the proper entry, delete it. To delete, just right click the entry, then click Delete.

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If you scroll lower you will see the entries with user friendly names.

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I hope this tip helps you clean up those unwanted uninstall entries in your Add/Remove programs list.

Ben Carigtan shows you how it’s done!

» Filed Under Windows 7

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Comments

6 Responses to “Remove Uninstalled Programs still in Add Remove Programs”

  1. Barry D said on : December 14th, 2009 at 12:13 pm

    Thank you so much for this information! Something is wrong with my Windows XP because I’ve uninstalled many programs, but some still remained in Add/Remove programs.

    This was very annoying and used to frustrate me to no end. Using your tutorial, I was able to remove all the stuck entries from my Add/Remove programs. Thanks very much!


  2. Roshan said on : December 29th, 2009 at 10:19 pm

    Thanks a lot, it really worked! I had a couple of shady programs stuck in Add/Remove Programs and they simply would not go away. This worked.


  3. Jonny Kim said on : March 26th, 2010 at 7:38 pm

    This does NOT work with windows 7! Why would you put that it does? I did this on XP and it worked fine, but it does NOT work on windows 7 (the location they tell you to go is NOT correct)


  4. kimmytattoo said on : June 6th, 2010 at 11:26 am

    article was excellent. Helped me clean out my pc of old programs.

    thanks


  5. kimmytattoo said on : June 6th, 2010 at 11:27 am

    oh and I am using windows 7, instruction took me right to where I needed to be


  6. SaGa said on : June 30th, 2010 at 4:05 am

    thanks man! it works for me! program is now gone for good! thank you very much!


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