Uninstalling a game that you've already deleted?

Jed Shields · 28 Oct 2011 at 22:27

Hi guys,

long story short: installed The Witcher 2, didn't work, problem with HDDs, unplugged, replugged, drive letters changed as I must have plugged SATAs differently, couldn't uninstall game as it couldn't find path, deleted game, tried to install again but it thinks it's still installed and can't find path. Phew.

I guess I need to clear the registry but I'm not sure where to find it. Any ideas?

lurkio · 29 Oct 2011 at 15:23

start with HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE
look for name of game company
then try
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\

and lastly
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
and
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

CurrentVersion , should not have space , gay OCuk forums seems to add it

Deception · 29 Oct 2011 at 16:19

Could also use a registry crawler instead of going bit by bit (it scans registry and shows all items it's found). Also, could use Revo uninstaller to find any left over traces from an uninstall

sharkkk · 29 Oct 2011 at 17:08

lurkio said:
start with HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE
look for name of game company
then try
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\

and lastly
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
and
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

CurrentVersion , should not have space , gay OCuk forums seems to add it

Yeah you could manually browse the registry... Alternatively, just open regedit, Ctrl+F search for "witcher", delete as appropriate, and use F3 to find next.

lurkio · 29 Oct 2011 at 17:48

Or you could use the freeware registry analyser (now called regalyzer http://www.safer-networking.org/en/regalyzer/index.html)
it has a jump to reg key function , so you can paste the locations I posted
and jump straight to them.
It also has a great search feature which is a lot better than the built in regedit one
I pretty much use this instead of regedit

sharkkk · 29 Oct 2011 at 17:57

Right, and then you'd have to look through hundreds of keys to find the right one where the useful new find feature shows you what you actually want

And don't forget how many of those key folders (especially in uninstall

have IDs instead of names, so you actually have to check each one..

anything I don't mind · 29 Oct 2011 at 18:17

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Security/Secure-cleaning/Windows-Installer-CleanUp-Utility.shtml