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General discussion

Problem viewing list of the programs in control panel !

Feb 4, 2010 12:47PM PST

Hi

I have problem viewing the installed programs in programs and features of the control panel. I have several softwares installed in my dell 32 bit windows 7 OS but i could see just 4 of them which doesn't show any size and uninstall option when i see it as a list view and at the bottom of the page the total size of the currently installed programs is shown as 0 bytes.

I COULD SEE ALL THE PROGRAMS OR SOFTWARES IN THE PROGRAM FILES BUT NOT IN THE CONTROL PANEL. All of them work very fine. Is this a case of virus or malware, does this have any solution ??

could someone help me out with this. Thank you.

Discussion is locked

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Not always a solution...
Feb 5, 2010 1:46AM PST

Unfortunately, it is often an irreversible situation. In short, when a program is installed, information is added to the system registry so that you can launch the uninstaller from the Control Panel should you want to later. However, some registry cleaners and other maintenance applications delete those entries, a process that can only be reversed if the program you ran created a backup and offers you a way to undo the changes.

However, it should not affect programs installed from this point forward (unless you re-run that application). In addition, you can still uninstall software by browsing through the Program Files directory and launching the respective program's uninstaller manually.

Regards,
John

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You have not given us much background but
Feb 6, 2010 10:43AM PST

one cause of this could be that you are logged in as a standard user and the system administrator has denied you access to certain items of installed software so that you cannot uninstall them without his knowledge.
What John Wilkinson says about the registry is right but each user has a slightly different segment of the registry which is personal to that user and so the view of the system environment can be dependant on which user is logged in.