Trouble Uninstalling Apps on Windows? Try These 5 Ways!

The process of installing and removing programs or applications in Windows is sometimes not as smooth as you might think. There are times when certain applications cannot be removed from the system and the user ends up feeling frustrated because it is so difficult to remove the application.

This could be due to a number of reasons such as a disabled or corrupted Windows Installer service, or it could be due to a problem within the Windows operating system itself. Well, on this occasion WinPoin will give you five ways that you can try to remove a program or application in Windows:

1. Restart Windows Installer

Most cases of failure to uninstall a program or application are caused by the Windows Installer service, therefore WinPoin recommends you to restart this service. If restarting doesn’t work, then we’ll try to re-register Windows Installer and check if there’s a difference. For those of you who don’t know how, please follow these steps:

• Press Win + R to open Run.
• Type services.msc and click OK.
• Then a new window will appear and in the window as shown below, search for Windows Installer service and right click.

• Then Select Properties, followed by the Stop button and wait a few seconds, then click the Start button.
• Make sure Startup is set to Automatic.
• Click Apply > OK to save changes.

Now you can try again to uninstall a specific program or application. If still unable to remove, proceed with re-registering the Windows Installer service. The method is as follows:

• Type cmd in Windows search and click Run as administrator.
• Once you are in the Command Prompt, type the below command

msiexec /unreg

• After that, type the following command again

msiexec /regserver

• Now, close the Command Prompt and try to remove or uninstall the program that is causing the problem.

2. End Application Process in Task Manager

You may not be able to remove a program if the process is still actively running in the Task Manager. If it is true that the problem is due to this, then you can end the application process in Task Manager first and then try to uninstall the application again.

You can also try restarting Windows Explorer to fix this problem. Just search for Windows Explorer, then right-click and select restart from the menu that appears.

3. Uninstall in Safe Mode

As WinPoin mentioned earlier, you can also face problems when the app is running in the background. If the same thing still persists, there might be another app on your system that is also interfering with the uninstallation process.

Because it is difficult to determine which application is the problem, WinPoin recommends you to enter into Safe Mode to fix this problem and do uninstall the app from there. Safe Mode will prevent apps from running in the background, so no other apps will get in the way of the uninstall process.

4. Use Uninstaller Apps from third parties

If the problem still persists, it might be a good idea to try an uninstaller app from a third party like Absolute Uninstaller and IObit Uninstaller. Both of these applications have their own advantages when compared to uninstall programs available on Windows, including you can delete the application completely (until it is clean) and there is also a Batch Uninstall option, so you can delete several applications at once.

5. Delete Application Registry

Finally, if you are still unable to uninstall the app due to a problem in the Registry. Then you have to delete the registry key associated with the program. To do this, you can follow the steps that WinPoin has prepared below:

• Press Win + R to run Run.
• Type Regedit and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.
• Next, type the following command

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Uninstall

• You will notice that there are a lot of lock folders under the Uninstall option — scroll scroll down and select the lock folder that corresponds to the name of the app you want to delete. Then, right-click and click Delete.

*If you can’t find the Registry Key that matches your application, then you’ll have to search manually and try to check some of the Registry’s labeled with numbers. Left click on each folder and check its name in the right side panel.

Those are some ways from WinPoin to overcome “naughty” programs that are difficult to uninstall from your device. Hope it’s useful