Add/remove programs applet in control panel not displaying right

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czydiamond

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I am running xp service pack three. My add remove programs applet is not working correctly. It does not give an option to remove or change. Also shows too many program fragments, For example about 20 entries for foreign languages for my vid card.
Here is a screen shot.
http://myweb.cableone.net/rjoh2/addremove.jpg
Any help would be appreciated
Thanks
Randy J
 
Firstly, for you, add and remove is already broken and this usually is a malware infestation https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic118881.html or check the 8-steps and the malware forum

Whilst I cannot blame Adobe software for the foreign languages issue, I would recommend completely removing ALL Adobe software, and using a little program called Secunia PSI www.secunia.com which will help you remove all traces from the registry.

Then having cleaned that out, you should install Foxit reader http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/ in place of Adobe reader.

The only other Adobe software I personally allow is the Flash player and Shockwave player.

You should install Secunia as a utility you can run when required, not autostart with Windows because it means you can set all installed utilities (like dot-net, flash, java etc etc to NOT auto-check for updates. An execution of Secunia once a month or so will do ALL that update checking for you and handle their updating for you. An excellent piece of software.

On the question of multiple languages, I suspect you were silly enouogh to just allow the video driver to install 'default', instead of taking the 'advanced' option, during which you could probably select only ONE language !

You cold also install and use Ccleaner http://www.ccleaner.com/ to check for redundant or plain wrong registry entries, provided you feel competant to use it. Unwary use of ccleaner can lose all your favourites and vitally-important cookies....
 
you're right about the languages

I don't care that much about the languages but the add/remove programs not giving me the option to remove or change installed programs. I do get the option on some programs that I have recently installed.
I viewed my registry localmachine/software/microsoft/windows/currentversion/uninstall
This should show all the currently installed programs and gives an option to show the button or not. What happened is that the most recently installed programs are showing here and these do show the add remove button, but all the other programs are not listed as they should be. For some reason the uninstall option was removed from that registry key.
I have manually uninstalled (from the uninstall programs in the original software) many old programs.
Some such as Photoshop cs4 I am not going to screw with.
Like you I hate adobe reader. I don't really have problems with it anymore because I disabled adobe updater, which is the app that always seems to be using system resources.
Randy J.
 
Suggest you download the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility. Double-click to run from your desktop to install.

Open the program> highlight> delete all those extra Adobe files.

This will work for the entries that can't be uninstalled/removed in Add/Remove Programs.
 
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