Uninstall stuck Application

Question

I am an application developer. I have been working on an installer for my application. I seam to have messed it, my application is now stuck in control panel I cant uninstall it due to a loop in the install detection variables.

I know I have face this before years ago. However I can't seam to remember, was there a command for PowerShell or a registry change that can be done to remove stuck applications?

I haven't been able to find the solution in Google.

I checked

Get-AppxPackage | Select Name, PackageFullName

Its not listed there looks like that's just Microsoft stuff.

Answer 1

Uninstaller records reside under Registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

If you know GUID of your application, you can navigate directly to proper subkey instead of searching through all the subkeys.

Delete the entire subkey. Before that, you might also want to delete files/folders referred in various values of your subkey, e.g. in UninstallString or ModifyPath.

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Also, if your problematic uninstaller is an EXE file, you can build fixed version and replace current one at location shown in value UninstallString. Then re-launch uninstallation and it should pass.

Answer 2

Well... there is solution for regular user- i use CCleaner app (its free anyway). Can be used for very useful stuff. One of them is for uninstall programs (like this situation: check Tools -> Uninstall) and clear all wrong registry keys from Windows. In some situations - this can speed up your Windows boot process.

Good luck :)