Can’t Delete an App

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Greetings All

A number of years ago, I bought Corel’s WinDVD Pro 12 for media playback.  It is easily the most troublesome piece of software that I have ever used.  Recently I purchased a portable USB Blu-ray/DVD drive that came with Cyberlink’s Power DVD.  In my opinion, that program is better in a number of ways.  Now, attempting to uninstall the Corel program, I get a message (Error 1723) that says I’m missing a DLL file that’s needed for the removal to take place.  I found a post on the Corel site, giving instructions on how to manually remove it.  First step is to go to the Windows\Installer folder and delete some stuff.  My version of Windows does not have this folder, nor can I find it in any other location.  I’m running Windows 10 Pro, 21H2, June updates.  I’m thinking about just going to program files and delete everything, look around in places like roaming and deleting same, then going to the registry and junk everything with a Corel label.  Any advice would be appreciated.  Thanks.

I also tried reinstalling the program to see if it might add the missing file, but the message says that everything is already installed.

Casey H

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hmm..been there before with some old programs that don’t uninstall properly.
1st backup! and/ or system restore.

Long method:
Back then, I searched program files etc and removed them manually, then used ccleaner to clean up remnants, then it’s registry cleaner only to establish found/broken keys.
I’d take a screenshot of the keys found within CC regcleaner and then manually searched the registry using regedit to remove the dead keys pointing to the program, as you’ve probably guessed I didn’t trust the CC regcleaner (or any other for that matter)
You could be extra vigilant and export each key before deleting as a failsafe.

Quick and dirty method:
There are plenty of uninstallers out there but, I don’t trust them either.
If you do go down that method, look for a portable app, no doubt alex will chime in to provide a suitable portable alternative.

Keeping IT Lean, Clean and Mean!

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Casey H

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Try uninstalling with the free portable GeekUninstaller includes registry entries deletes.

As always, backup registry / create restore point / create image copy.. before any system changes.

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Microfix, BobbyB, Casey H

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Corel does have lousy uninstall programs. Actually, they do have lousy ‘install’ programs too – and I know this because I continue to use their programs (some of them) because I’m a loyal Canadian supporter (perhaps without common sense).   Their help service too is lousy but I have found with continued and constant pushing that I usually manage to get responses from them, and get to the bottom of the problems.  My recent travail with re-installing CorelDraw 2017 took only about 10 emails to fix….

But back to the point.   I’d personally use an uninstaller – and I do trust them  (otherwise how could you live in a computerized world?)  I use Revo Uninstaller and find it works reasonably well at finding leftover stuff.

And then, despite all gloom-and-doom warnings about editing the Registry, I use RegistryFinder  (much faster than RegEdit) to find leftover references and delete them.  I’d simply search for ‘WinDVD Pro’ or ‘WinDVD’ and delete all the (suitable) entries you find.   I doubt that doing that will cause any significant system instability, but of course the usual advice to back up your registry makes sense.

I dislike CorelDraw’s installation/configuration routine to use my Documents folder for Corel files.  However there doesn’t seem to be any way of changing this that I can find, despite changing file locations and settings where-ever I can find them (for several versions of CorelDraw).   I’ve found it quite functional to simply go to the registry and wherever I find the reference to “c:\documents\Corel\…” to simply replace it with my preferred location (which happens to be “c:\program data\Corel\…)  Works, works easily and successfully, and doesn’t cause a nuclear blast to my system.

Sorry for all the digressions.

Richard

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oldfry, Casey H

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<don’t mind me just testing something>

Susan Bradley Patch Lady

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John

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I ran the Geek Uninstaller program.  First effort appears to just use the Windows uninstaller.  I got the same error message as before.  Then I chose the force uninstall selection, and it deleted about a dozen registry entries, but it didn’t delete anything else. There was perhaps something else I should have clicked on to make it work properly.  So I ran a “Corel” search on the C drive, and it came up with several hits from the program files folders and the users folders.  I had to run it three times, once for each user account that’s on the computer.  Then I ran CCleaner’s registry tool, and there was about a jillion entries that I deleted.  I then rebooted and ran the system file checker, and everything turned out good.  I checked some key programs like email, printing, audio, etc., and everything seems to work.  It would have taken a long time to manually clean every Corel entry from the registry.  Fortunately I have no other Corel software that would complicate things.

Casey

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Microfix, Alex5723

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The plot thickens.  After running CCleaner yesterday, I just started a registry search today.  After 30 minutes of finding and deleting residual “corel” entries.  I gave up.  I’m wondering just how many entries that program created.  I suppose they’re not hurting anything, but it’s the principle of it.  What I need is a registry tool that finds all entries that meet a certain search criteria, lets me look at them, because there are some that I’d want to keep (e.g. Corel entries associated with Libre Office), and then lets me delete the junk–all in one fell swoop.

Casey

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Well, the program I mentioned:  Registryfinder   (registry-finder.com) seems to me to work well to find all entries matching a given criteria – eg ‘corel’.  I don’t know that they can match two separate criteria at the same time but quick review worked for me.

As I said the program is much faster than the native regedit.

I’m not actually shilling for the company though it sounds like it I know.

Richard

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Casey H

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Try Nir Sofer’s free, small, portable RegScanner tool. I’ve used it for years.

Hope this helps…

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oldfry, Casey H, geekdom

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This one is industrial strength and can do much damage very quickly if not used carefully, but it can unblock and clean up registry messes quickly and efficiently especially when hunting for needle in haystack.

Carpe Diem {with backup and coffee}
offline▸ Win10Pro 2004.19041.572 x64 i3-3220 RAM8GB HDD Firefox83.0b3 WindowsDefender
offline▸ Acer TravelMate P215-52 RAM8GB Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1265 x64 i5-10210U SSD Firefox106.0 MicrosoftDefender
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Casey H

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I see no point in “cleaning up” the registry unless something is broken.
The registry is a database of settings for Windows and if nothing asks for those unused entries then they are not returned and do not hinder other queries.

cheers, Paul

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Casey H, geekdom

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Software that neither uninstalls nor installs qualifies as broken.

Carpe Diem {with backup and coffee}
offline▸ Win10Pro 2004.19041.572 x64 i3-3220 RAM8GB HDD Firefox83.0b3 WindowsDefender
offline▸ Acer TravelMate P215-52 RAM8GB Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1265 x64 i5-10210U SSD Firefox106.0 MicrosoftDefender
online▸ Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1778 x64 i5-9400 RAM16GB HDD Firefox114.0b8 MicrosoftDefender

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geekdom wrote:

Software that neither uninstalls nor installs qualifies as broken.

So portable apps qualify as broken, not in my digital life!
Portable apps are a godsend in many situations where no
installation is required hence no uninstallation, hence NOT broken.
Why do you think nirsofer. sysinternals, wininternals and glary utils have been so
successful over the decades.

Keeping IT Lean, Clean and Mean!

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wavy

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Software that neither uninstalls nor installs — that which was designed to uninstall or install — qualifies as broken.

Within the context of this thread, the Corel software would neither uninstall nor install. It was broken.

Portable software is useful and I have several such and one is used daily: WuMgr. I don’t consider it broken, nor did I consider portable software in the context of this thread.

Regarding programs that will neither uninstall nor install (nor update) correctly, the process is tedious and time-consuming to strip out the troublesome portions including the registry, subprograms, and directories. I have several programs, including Microsoft software, that qualify as mind-benders when something goes wrong at elementary level. Anything that writes to or changes the registry runs a risk of corrupting the system.

Carpe Diem {with backup and coffee}
offline▸ Win10Pro 2004.19041.572 x64 i3-3220 RAM8GB HDD Firefox83.0b3 WindowsDefender
offline▸ Acer TravelMate P215-52 RAM8GB Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1265 x64 i5-10210U SSD Firefox106.0 MicrosoftDefender
online▸ Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1778 x64 i5-9400 RAM16GB HDD Firefox114.0b8 MicrosoftDefender

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geekdom wrote:

Software that neither uninstalls nor installs — that which was designed to uninstall or install — qualifies as broken.

I guess most AV products are therefore broken… as nearly all require uninstall/removal tools to do what a standard uninstall doesn’t or can’t via Settings or Control Panel > Programs and Features > Uninstall).

For example:

McAfee Consumer Product Removal tool (MCPR)
Norton Remove and Reinstall tool
Uninstall Tools for Bitdefender Products
ESET Uninstaller tool
Avast Uninstall Tool
AVG Clear tool/AVG remover tool
Kaspersky Kavremover tool

I only found a couple of products that DIDN’T have separate removal tools.

(Failed uninstalls is an area I have very recent experience of. A friend’s Norton 360 subscription expired and she decided to uninstall it and use Defender instead. After being unable to uninstall it completely she asked for my help. I used the Norton Remove and Reinstall tool which has to reboot the device… but it went into a BSOD loop at startup instead. I tried everything I could think of (e.g. Safe Mode, Recovery, Reset, etc.), to no avail. I ended up taking her laptop away, removing her data and carrying out a clean install of the latest Windows 10.)

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oldfry

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And don’t forget Microsoft’s own Office suite. To actually remove it (including the license key, so you can use it elsewhere), you need the Office uninstaller from MS.

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Good stuff all.  I appreciate that so many of you weighed in.

Casey

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