On 3/20/15 2:57 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
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?
Yep. I'm the only user of my computers, and my accounts are admin
accounts. I didn't take the time to try the Super-Admin account from
Safe Mode. I also didn't try Run as Administrator either.
Account groups and permissions is something I've never delved into much,
since I moved to Mac when my XP system totally took a dive.
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.
No. My brother-in-law runs Win 7, and I had no running Windows
computers when we installed it on his system, 3-4 years ago. It wasn't
until he called saying things wouldn't work, and I did some research,
that I discovered the compatibility mode requirement. Once we set the
compatibility mode, a lot of problems disappeared related to this aspect
now worked.
Eventually, I had Vista installed on the now homegrown XP box, and
installed the program there just to help him find out how to do this,
that, and the other. I never actually ran it for any other purpose.
But I did find a lot of buggy things in it.
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.
Sadly, you just can't have 100% faith in anyone's documentation any
more, even if there is documentation. :-(
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.
I might take a look at this if I have the time. (Got to go to work the
next 3 days.)
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.
Something else to try.
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).
That's a good idea. If I can find the program here, I might try this.
The only place I think you can find the program now is on C/Net, and I'd
rather not get it from there.
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).
As I mentioned to Stormin' Norman, I'm certainly not adverse to
reinstalling Vista, since it' just a learning box for me, I use it for
nothing.
And the learning has been surprising of late. I'm doing a Vista
Business machine for donation, and mine is Vista Ultimate. I remember
when Vista came out, people didn't like the fact the power button icon
in the Start Menu would only put the system to a low power state, it
didn't actually power off. This is exactly what the Vista Business
system does. But my Ultimate system actually powers down when the power
button icon is clicked.
Hope this all made sense, got to get on the road so no proof reading.
--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 33.1
Thunderbird 31.5
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"