Ken Springer wrote:

Never had *this* happen before...

Vista Ultimate Service Pack 2 system, most definitely 32 bit.

I've got an old piece of software installed that required running in XP
SP2 mode when installed under Windows 7. I installed it here just to
help my brother-in-law with the program, I never used it.

The installation included a program written, apparently, in Dbase, and
the installation also installed a Dbase runtime engine.

When trying to uninstall both, I got the message the program can only be
uninstalled on 64 bit windows.

Repeated efforts finally got the Dbase runtime engine uninstalled, but
no luck with the program itself.

Any brilliant ideas about how to get around this?

When attempting uninstall, are you logged under an admin-level Windows
account (i.e., it is in the Administrators account group)? Have you
tried logging into the Administrator account to uninstall?

So did you have to use compatibility mode to install the program or only
to run it after install? If the latter, maybe you still have
compatibility mode set on the shortcut or the file it loads.

I ran into the opposite problem the other day. I had uninstalled
OneDrive and then planned to follow with a reinstall. I was having
problems that a reinstall might fix. The OneDrive web page lists
Windows 7/8 as supported and not earlier versions of Windows. When I
tried to install, I got "OneDrive couldn't be installed" with an error
code. I started researching and found someone tried right-clicking on
the installer in Windows Explorer to select the "Troubleshoot
compatibility" entry. It loads the executable (the installer) but
doesn't let it do anything and when done checking then it suggested I
run it under Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode. What!? OneDrive isn't
supposed to run under XP. Went ahead and set XP SP2 compatibility on
the installer's .exe and now it is installed. Go figure.

I'm using Windows 7 (one of the newsgroups to which you cross-posted)
and it has the context menu troubleshooter wizard. I don't know if it
is available in Vista. I got off Vista as soon as I could. The MS
article https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/927386 mentions how to
use the compatibility troubleshooter under Vista.

Sometimes an install adds shortcut in the folder it adds to the Start
menu that runs the uninstall. You could try setting compatibility on
that shortcut or on the file to which it points.

In the past, there were times when the only way I could uninstall a
program was to install it and then do the uninstall. Nowadays I usually
do the registry and file cleanup myself (after saving a backup).

Another option is to see if the free version of Revo Uninstaller would
get rid of the program (if they included it in their database included
with the program). Instead of you trying to dig through the registry to
eradicate the remnant entries for the program and then delete the files,
you could see if they have hardcoded experience in their database to do
that for you. I don't know if they only know how to remove what the
program's uninstaller knows on how to uninstall or if they include more
items to do the remnant registry and file cleanup since most
uninstallers often do not remove everything, especially since many
registry changes or file creates may occur for the program after the
installer has finished (it can only record what it did, not what the
program or Windows did afterward).