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."

Comments

This is why you turn off updates....

[Fallen Kell]

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.

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[jkrise]

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. I'm a bit confused here. Let's say I'm a sysadmin and I have a few 100 PCs in my network, 90% of them running some flavour of Windows - mostly Win2K and WinXP, 6 new Vista PCs for testing and the rest Linux. (actually I'm no longer a sysadmin but the rest of the above scenario applies in my firm).

Should we double-guess what Microsoft tells us in their tech notes, and manually check every single patch? Every patch Tuesday, we get about 8 patches on average, how can any end user co. be expected to test out all these on their production networks? How exactly can sysadmins go about checking all these patches themselves? Does it add to their 'experience' or job value? I don't think so, and the sysads can't be bothered to verify what Microsoft ought to know.

End result - we have a WSUS server which handles all the updates, and that server is set to automatic, sothe sysads get back to their task of configuring new PCs, setting up changed environments based on changing project needs etc.

A separate vetting process and a delay of a week is insane IMO - with zero day attacks and little info. to work on - sysadmins are better off doing Automatic Updates. The other problem here in India is that there is no direct support from Microsoft even for Corporates who are willing to pay - support issues get routed to some VAR, the engineers there know little better than the sysadmins, and often merely pretend to help out. In reality they couldn't be bothered less.

Poor Vista adoption will actually accentuate his problem I guess - the smaller userbase will mean lesser bugs reported until it's too late.

Re:I'm not experiencing this at all...

[vertinox]

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.