Hello. Im having touble removing some programs in windows xp. Ok so heres the deal ive downloaded programs and when i try to unistall them i get error messages such as "could not find the main class" and im guessing i have unistalled them but when i got to control pannel - add remove programs its still there. Also on some programs using the install shield wizard i get an error number 0x80040707 how do i remove these stubborn programs from control pannel
Hmmm...try deleting the folder they were installed to, if you know where it is. Sometimes you may have to reboot the system if you get something where one file happens to be "in use", for some reason--esp when it's not showing up in task manager.
If the program in question is an undesirable (i.e. spyware), it can be very stubborn and difficult to remove manually. Usually software of that nature is designed to be resilient to removal, not unlike weeds. If you are having difficulties of this nature, try running Ad-Aware, the free spyware removal utility. It's a must-have for Windows users.
I have a similar issue, and running ad-aware does not resolve it. The message I receive is, "internal failure, error # 0x80040707". Could this have been caused by an uninstall that went sour? Does anyone have any suggestions? It seems my start up has slowed down ever since this occurred. Thanks for your help.
A failed uninstall could be due to a broken uninstall executable, a bad or missing installation log, or simply evil software that's meant to be nafariously difficult to remove. Unfortuantely, in all but the last instance these generally aren't caused by spyware, so spyware removal tools won't be able to help you here. The only way to remove software that can't be automatically uninstalled is to manually delete its components wherever they can be found, and use a registry editor to clear out any references to it as well.
