Uninstall Entry

I deleted a couple of entries in Add Remove Programs
before I knew there was a way to hide them

yes the programs still on my hard drive

How can I recreate these entries to appear in Add/Remove again?????????

 

About the only way to do it would be to install the programs over the present intallation. That would keep your personal setting and data, update your program files, and rewrite the Registry key complete with uninstall path.

To create that key manually would be tough for most folks.

 

Any other ideas?

 

What kind of machine do you have. my hp has a reinstall programs list i can reload my mistakes from.

 

If you didn't actutally uninstal the programs themselves, then you can leave alone.

When you want to uninstall the programs, then you can use the uninstaller executes located in the program's folder, which is what Add/Remove uses.

Or you can use System Restore to retore back to the point prior to doing the damage.

Regards - Charles

 

Since you are persistent, I did some experimenting. It turns out that, under certain circumstances, it's not too hard to rebuild those items if you are comfortable editing the Registry.

Open Regedit and migrate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

Right-click in the right side screen pane and choose New > string value

Name it DisplayName

Double click on it and type your missing program name into the field.

Right-click the right side pane again and choose New > string value

Name it UninstallString

Double click on it and type the path to the uninstall executable located in the Program folder for the particular item. Hint: it will usually be named uninstall.exe or unwise.exe. and in the folder where you have installed the program. Be sure you get the right one lest you end up uninstalling the wrong program.

That it! The new entry will appear in the Control Panel applet under Add/Remove programs and will work as well as before.

That works only if the uninstaller for the program is clearly defined as a single executable file. If the path is convoluted and requires switches and reference to some log file, it gets to be more than I want to learn.