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Change or Remove Button Missing at Control Panel Add or Remove Programs

Posted By Raymond In Category: Computer

Jul
14
2008

The correct and safest way to uninstall or remove an installed software or driver on a Windows computer is from Add or Remove Programs which can be found in Control Panel. When you run the uninstaller, it will simply refers back to the list of files that is extracted to the program’s folder during installation and deletes them. Sometimes you will notice that even after uninstalling a program, the program’s folder and some files will still be there. Those files are the ones that is created by the software, not extracted by the installer. There are some uninstaller that is smart enough to ask you if you’d like to delete the remaining files.

Normally when you open Add or Remove Programs shortcut from Control Panel, you will see a list of installed software which you can change or remove. The change option is usually used to repair the software. It actually meant reinstall the program with exactly the same components that were installed first time. As for remove option, it uninstalls the software from your system.

There are times that you need to remove or uninstall a software or driver from your computer but the Change/Remove button in Add or Remove Programs is missing!
Add/Remove button Missing

Here is a method to make Windows show the Remove, Change (or the Change/Remove button together) buttons in the listing.


This solution requires registry modification. So becareful not to change anything else.

1. Go to Start > Run

2. Type regedit and click OK

3. Navigate to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{Program Name}
Note that as the {program name} may be a CLSID, you may need to search for the product name (e.g. “Intel Audio Studio”, using what you saw in Add/Remove) to locate the correct entry.

4. If you see NoRemove with the data 0×00000001 (1), that means the remove button will be unavailable. If you also see NoModify with the data 0×00000001 (1), that means the change button will be unavailable.
Restore Change/Remove button

5. Simply double click on the NoRemove or NoModify name and change the value data to 0 (number zero). If Add or Remove Programs is open, close it and reopen again. The Change/Remove button should now appear.
Restore Change or Remove button

If the above registry hack didn’t work, you should try running this registry fix created by Kelly Theriot to restore change or remove button.

One of the most common software or driver that the Change or Remove button is missing is Intel Audio Studio. I am sure there are more…


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    • Dushyant

      good

    • Prashanth

      Thanks Raymond. But I use \’Revo Uninstaller\’ to uninstall any software. It\’s great & does a deep scan of folders & registry before & after running the default uninstaller program. It also lists softwares that generally are not visible in appwiz.cpl. Revo Uninstaller deserves a mention in your blog.

    • IMAD

      i dont have this prob but Thankx raymond for the the info

    • http://www.wannafork.com tbare

      thanks ray… pretty slick

      btw, for the comments, when you call the comment back to the page, try using

      stripslashes(‘comment_here’);

      it’ll get rid of the slashes in front of the ‘s and “s

    • http://back2mangalman.blogspot.com Mangalman

      Me too am a Revo Uninstaller fan.

    • Deyaa Addeen Fahmy Shedeed

      wonderful , thanks a lot.

    • webcadre

      how about the uninstaller that the software provided? does it make things much more easy…

    • bovine

      bad call here ray.

      you have gone for the long winded geeky solution, instead of straight out recommending the wonderful freeware that is infinitely preferable, such as mentioned the great (freeware) revo uninstaller, others are also available you should have listed.

      try to keep the geek within :)

    • http://www.raymond.cc/ Raymond

      Don’t know why I’ve never wanted to use an uninstaller tool. Don’t you think it’s geekier to make the Change or Remove button appear directly from registry without using any tools?

    • Merlin Magii

      Thanks Raymond.
      Yes a well written tool can be most useful BUT don’t we have a responsibility to try and understand the basics of our machines also? Nowadays, kids are allowed to use calculators in school at a young age. Fine you say – but what the hell are they going to do when the bloomin calculator packs up ?

    • sauf

      geek or no geek, nevermind…i like this info. with this info, no need to use uninstall tool…less tool i used in my pc, i like it

    • jeff parker

      this is nice. thanks ray.

    • http://www.q8sms.net pcexpertq8

      good
      thak you

    • CibehGuaiLAN

      I prefer lesser softwares in my computer too. So this may be a better solution, though I have never faced this problem before.
      But I used CCleaner for some purposes like deleting and clearing file, which is good, and also includes built in uninstaller so CCleaner is great.

    • mayhem

      tried this for IE7 but doesn’t work – the remove button appears but when i clicked it the system says error occurred – no access. darn.

    • maria medeiros

      jai perdu mon panneau de configuration

    • http://www.rodamonroe.com SimplyAwesome

      thank you … computer shut down after the roda monroe virus hi it and can’t remove programs but now I can …

    • http://Great Nirmal

      It’s very useful to us… Anyway thank…

    • Verde

      Thank you. I too want my control panel to work like it is supposed to. Needing another program to do what control panel is supposed to and doesn’t seems to be unnecessarily complicated.

    • Verde

      Correction: Does seem to be unnecessarily complicated.

    • bro

      I am missing the key Uninstall… any way to restore it?

    • mark moses

      how can i remove the software unti virus if “change” writen at the buttons?

    • Jonatas

      Muito obrigado funcionou aqui !

    • http://kimeraweb.com.es kimeraweb

      Revo Uninstaller es lo que me faltaba por conocer.
      Yo tenia este problema de no ver los botones porque instale un antivirus demasiado protector, el F-Security, por un rootkit que me encontraba AGV pero no me lo quitaba.

      Uso WServer, e instalé la versión de prueba porque no encuentro antivirus compatibles con mi sistema operativo.

      Despues de haber probado una docena de antivirus, tengo que hacer constancia que los virus hacen menos daño que los antivirus, es cierto, no exagero un apice.

      Tengo medio ordenador patas arriba por un toolkit que no se que hace, pero desde luego, no me molestaba, ni relentizaba ni cargaba la maquina. El antivirus me lo ha puesto todo a la virulé, llevo 4 horas volviendo las cosas a la normalidad.

      MENOS MAL, QUE ERA LA VERSION DE PRUEBA, SI ENCIMA LLEGO A PAGAR, ME ROMPO LOS DIENTES.

    • maxhdrm

      I found this fix to have no relevance or baring on whether I could see the Change/Remove buttons. My work computer has (1) yet I am still able to use these buttons. The missing vairable (s) are admin rights, group policies and missing/corrupted registry all together. Most of my research points to the particular program missing all together from specific registry path.

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