change/remove buttons missing in add remove programs

[C Stern]

I noticed some strange problem with my Windows XP computer. Let me first describe the start of the issue. Today morning when I booted up my system suddenly my Adobe software gave me a pop up box asking me for the serial key. I don’t know how it came up suddenly after using it for more than 6 months. Anyways, I lost its serial key but it is a legitimate copy. I tried to find out its key under registry but dint found any. Hence I thought I should uninstall the same.

Now here is the main problem. When I went to Add and Remove programs and selected Adobe, surprisingly I dint found Change or Uninstall Button. I checked other programs from the list and there are just 4 to 5 programs having Change/Uninstall buttons associated with them out of the list of more than 50 programs. That means I cannot remove any of those programs from my system? I took a look in the registry and the ones that have the change/remove button are the only ones that have uninstall entries in the registry. So is the problem in registry or somewhere else?

Any idea what is wrong with my system? How can I fix it?

[Janos™]

Well we will need to find out where the problem is. For doing so, as you are well aware of registries, just go to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\<Program Name here> (Some don't have a recognizable name, just a long series of letters andnumbers, but look in the right-hand pane at DisplayName.)

Here in the right pane, check if the following values are present:

• Double-click on 'NoRemove' and set its value to 0
• Double-click on 'NoModify' and set its value to 0

If yes, and the NoRemove is set to 1, the Remove button will be unavailable. Similarly if it is set to 1, the Change button will be unavailable. You will need to double click the same change them to Zero.

Hope it helps.

[C Stern]

Thank you very much for the help Janos. I already tried those steps before posting my query here (found it on web) but they dint worked. Actually the problem is that registry key itself is not present on my system. Only a few are there most are missing. Yet these programs still appear in add/remove programs, just not with the change/remove button. As i said in my first post itself, there are only 4 to 5 entries for the programs which have change/remove button in add/remove programs. Any other help please?

[kelthorne]

any luck yet????

Well..I have the same problem. However when I follow the registry path suggested and I get to "uninstall", it's not there. Now what ?

Could this have been caused by a virus ? I recently had and removed (I'm pretty sure) "Virtumonde" and while reading about it, I THOUGHT I remembered someone saying it could affect things in the control panel.

Needin' help, that's for sure. Thanks for any advice.....Z

[Javalr]

Hello C Stern, can you tell me why do you want to uninstall the program? I mean, if you are thinking to re-install or upgrade the suite, then you can do it without removing it as well, right? Simply run the installer and it will overwrite it. It may make no difference whether you upgrade directly to CS3 or whether you reinstall CS2 and immediately uninstall and restart.

[ebarbero]

I have the same problem. I have heard that some registry cleaners screw up and do this -- but I have no idea if it is true.

I have the same problem after I "removed" Toolbook 10.0 in the usual way. After that, all "remove" buttons disappeared.

[dweop]

I have the same problem. I have heard that some registry cleaners screw up and do this -- but I have no idea if it is true.

Yes, Secure Uninstaller can do it. I always use this one, it works well on my pc.

[Starfish2483]

Hey if you have a theme that you got online and installed it to your computer
then get rid of it and go back to your orginal theme this fixed the problem for me and the buttons came back on the add/or remove program.