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Programs Cannot Be Uninstalled In Vista?
Corson writes "I am surprised that nobody seems to have mentioned this here yet. Possibly after one of the latest updates in Windows Vista, two strange things happened: first, the Uninstall option is no longer available in the Control Panel when you right-click on older programs (most likely, those installed prior to the update in question, because uninstall works fine for recently installed programs — the Uninstall button is also missing on the toolbar at the top); second, some programs are no longer shown on the applications list in Control Panel (e.g., Yahoo Messenger). A Google search returns quite a few hits on this issue (e.g., one, two, three, and four) but everybody seems to be waiting patiently for a sign from Microsoft. But the company seems to have no clue or they would have fixed it already. I am just curious how many of you are experiencing this nuisance."
Problems like this happen all the time. This is why companies usually have a vetting process for any updates that are released and why no person should download an update for a week or more for these issues to be brought up and found/fixed. I keep automatic updates turned off ever since an update for Win2k corrupted my installation and forced a full re-install.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Does C-Cleaner still work? It's one of many tools out there to help "fix" Windows.
We are all just people.
Then the Slashdot article needs to be reworded to not be so fucking stupid. The article claims that uninstall is no longer working in Vista due to recent patches. This is an obviously false statement.
Good job of blaming the OS for developer problems. Apple clearly states that any app which is installed via pkg should come with an easy to use uninstaller or be able to be uninstalled via the original pkg. Given the choice between having the OS force a database for all applications or having two choices for application install, dmg (etc...) for self contained-drag and drop install/uninstall and pkg (for things that require elevated privs or scripts), I'd surely take the one with multiple options.
hm. maybe people would take your opinions more seriously if your alias wasn't msfanboi2. personally, my computing experience has been much more enjoyable since i switched to osx/linux at home and at work. if you've found a way to spend 50% of your time on windows maintaining it-- good for you.
And I'm surprised how a support question ends up on a news site!
My PowerBook came with OS X 10.2, and was upgraded to 10.3 then to 10.4 without any issues. Over the three years that it was my primary machine, I never re-installed the operating system. After one year, it was sent in for repair. Apple lost it and provided me with a replacement. Fortunately, before sending it in, I'd imaged the disk onto an old QuickSilver G4 (desktop), which I used in the intervening period. When I got it back, I just moved the disk contents back over. The next time I sent it in for repair, I moved the contents of the disk to a G4 Mac Mini and did the same thing. The OS install, over three years, was resident on three machines and went through three major OS versions.
The FreeBSD box under my desk has gone from 4.7 up to 6.2. At some point in the 6.x series, I moved /home onto a software RAID 1 array.
My OpenBSD box has gone from 3.7 to 4.1, again, without any problems.
Windows is the only operating system I've used where you expect upgrades to break things. Upgrading is almost always preferable to a clean install, since you keep all of your settings. If it isn't reliable, then that's a very bad thing.
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By planning for it.
By testing them.
Knowing what is on their systems is part of their job. As is maintaining those systems.
Yes, there are admins like that out there.
So you automatically accept and deploy the patches Microsoft sends out
My opinion is the opposite. But then, my opinion is based upon my experience with vendors releasing patches that broke systems.
In that case perhaps OS/X has a useability issue here.
..).
/System/Libraries/Frameworks and want to roll back.
We turn on and off services and administer other aspects of OS/X using OS provided tools in most other respects, so why not manage software in the same way? Even if a package should "come with an easy to use uninstaller" perhaps this uninstaller should be exposed to a central software management facility so it can be easily found. I say this as people typically delete the installer once the application has been installed, so the idea that users should look for the original package and use it to provide the service of uninstallation makes little sense, conceptually (why should an installer uninstall?) or practically.
I've never found Fink or MacPorts to be all that usable on OS/X else I'd certainly prefer to use these apt-like systems to manage software (especially after my recent failed attempt at upgrading to Python2.4 on OS/X 10.4 and later deciding to uninstall it
In my experience the task of uninstalling software is simply easier on Windows and Linux (best of all an apt-based system) than on OS/X. While Windows tends to leave files scattered around and leaves scars in the registry at least I know there is one graphical tool that is supposed to take care of the job. On OS/X I never know quite how to approach the problem - especially when I'm uninstalling software of a newer version than found in
Because he speaks a bit of truth. If you have supported Vista on the corporate side of things, it is a bit of the spawn of the devil in some regards. Most legacy VPN programs are hosed and countless other products had to go through a whole series of revamping and patching (heck even Outlook Web Access controls are broke on systems using Vista if you don't patch)
Of course most corporate users wouldn't notice thing since most companies are staying away from Vista like the plague but on occasion when a user calls in saying they got a new persona computer from dell and need to VPN or use OLWA or a legacy app... Well...
Office 2007 on the other hand is great, but you can run that on WinXP. No need to upgrade.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Perhaps you ought to give GNU/Linux systems another try. Perhaps Ubuntu would be your forté, simply because the "esoteric command line stuff," as you put it, isn't really required. There may be some situations wherein a little bit of command line stuff might be required, but these situations are typically more rare than you would think, at least in my experience. It just seems that people that run into these situations are quite loud and rampant with it.
There are many systems that are more tailored for geeks, and then you have Ubuntu and some other systems that are really tailored to end-users. Overall, they're doing a great job with it, and it is getting to be better as time goes on.
Having run both Windows Vista (both the 32-bit and the 64-bit, beta and release versions), I must say that there really is no comparison to Ubuntu. Windows still has many problems that it hasn't really gotten over yet, mostly due to problems that still haunt them from the past, but also because when you install a retail version of Vista, the drivers that you need have to be sought and everything else. Contrasted with Ubuntu, which has drivers for everything on all of the PCs that I manage on my own personal network, and on other systems that I have installed it onto (which at this point exceeds 100). Other distributions of GNU/Linux are more lightweight, but you don't really need to be <em>that</em> lightweight on today's PCs, either: Windows Vista seems to require way more resources than an updated and heavily customized Ubuntu Feisty box running an up-to-date version of Compiz and Emerald.
Here's an experiment for you to run on your own, if you are able to do so: Take a relatively modern PC and a Windows Vista Retail disc and an Ubuntu Feisty disc. Have someone install both of them. To be fair, make sure that it is a computer that has hardware that is supported under both operating systems by either a third party driver or the operating system itself. See which one is easier (and takes less time and black magic) to get working. I'm willing to bet that the outcome will surprise you. I know for sure that the outcome will surprise you on the machine that I have as my primary workstation (a HP Pavilion Slimline s7700n PC). Ubuntu supports the hardware in this system even better than Vista does pre-installed, and runs quite a bit faster (one such example: <em>Guild Wars</em> runs like utter crud on this system under Vista, but runs perfectly under Cedega on Ubuntu. Windows XP runs it better than Vista on this PC, but not as well as I can run it under Ubuntu.
It might be pertinent to do some fact-checking before spouting off next time... but then again, this <em>is</em> Slashdot.
I begged and pleaded with one of my clients (the only one I knew it would be a problem with) not to put Vista on the network. On a whim they did. It took me days to figure out how to connect it to the domain (after of course being forced to upgrade to the ultimate version.) Then about two weeks ago my client called to say quickbooks wouldn't work, (it had been working for about a month) what had I done? After counting to 10 or 100 or whatever it took for the red to start clearing, I replied that this was why I had asked them not to get Vista. I had turned automatic updates off. Somehow they were back on. I feel pretty sure it was in the fine print of something she installed that updates would be turned on. 2 hours with quickbooks started with uninstall and reinstall and ended with "if you can't uninstall you'll have to contact the computers manufacturer." 2 hours with Sony ended with "we won't support it unless you put the original OS back on." 1 hour with M$ led to an emailed msi uninstaller program which seemed to uninstall quickbooks. It didn't and quickbooks wouldn't reinstall. Another hour with quickbooks and a link to another M$ uninstaller program and I finally got quickbooks uninstalled, reinstalled and working so far. I still have no uninstall option for about 30 out of 40 installed programs. Like the poster above only recently installed programs can be uninstalled. I have been in the computer field for 27 years, I have M$ and Novell certs. My feeling now is that Vista will be the end of my computer career. At least until I become competent with GNU Linux. Another indication of my level of disgust with M$ Vista, I have been reading /. and other forums & blogs for many many years and this is the first post I have ever made.
Obviously I should remain a lurker(saksi). Anyway /. is great. Caio
as far as i'm concerned, if i'd just spent 200 dollars on the newest and best product from the largest and richest software company in the world i'd expect the thing to fucking well just work and work now.
MMM, Car analogy.
The trouble with this one is that cars, planes etc are self contained. With software it is running on a near infinite combination of machines that are anywhere from barely capable to super charged overclocking wetdreams. Now given that a lot of windows problems could be attributed to some unexpected intolerance in the application software and/or hardware it is being run with it is very hard to know when it is faulty.
I recently bought a Dell laptop with tons of crap software installed. None of them had the Uninstall button
I solved the problem by replacing that Vista with a clean installed one.
It still puzzles me how they (Dell) did it, but haven't had the time to check it myself.
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