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In HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\ is the list of installed programs in my machine (at least most of them). There, there's a String Value called UninstallString which has what you need to run in order to uninstall the program.
The thing is not every installer writes the same kind of info, yet Windows knows how to parse that string to run the uninstaller.
My questions are: does anybody know how to parse that string?, meaning what are the possible values it might get? and if not, where can I find that kind of info? I googled around with no luck, I guess I'm not looking for the right terms.

sebagomez
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  • Taking a quick browse through my registry, these are all paths. Can you give examples that you have where the string isn't a path, or an executable in $PATH? – Matthew Scharley Oct 04 '08 at 15:02
  • I already uninstalled but Visual Studio 2003 had many paths... I believe that was the case I found – sebagomez Oct 04 '08 at 15:21
  • Visual Studio 2008 seems to define UninstallPath and UninstallString, but they are identical, and there's only one path in each key, so there shouldn't be any issues there. Can't speak for 2003, I don't have a copy to test with. – Matthew Scharley Oct 04 '08 at 15:25

1 Answers1

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Have a look at this link from MSDN explaining install/unistall procedures, specifically item #6 "Support Add/Remove Programs Properly".

As an excerpt from the table there:

   Key Name   |   Key Type    |                  Description
UninstallPath | REG_EXPAND_SZ | Full path to the application's uninstall program

Despite the fact it says 'full path', alot of applications seem to shorten it if the program is in $PATH, especially with things like msiexec.exe.

Matthew Scharley
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