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How to remove software that refuses to uninstall

The below steps will help you remove an app from your system that simply refuses to uninstall. This can happen sometimes when the uninstaller of the app got corrupted/deleted or the app did not install an uninstaller. Note, these steps may not work for all apps, but should be fine for most.

Step 1 : Try the installer again
Do you have the original app's installer/setup ? Or can you download it from the web ? If so, install it on top of the existing version. Then try to uninstall it. In most cases, this should work. If it works, then jump to step 4.

Step 2 : Find the application's installation folder
Right click on the application's shortcut on the Desktop or Start menu. Click Properties from the popup menu. The 'Target'  field will show the program's folder. Take a note of the program's path and the filename. For example, if 'C:\Program Files\Acelogix\Ace Utilities\au.exe' is the target, 'C:\Program Files\Acelogix\Ace Utilities' is the path and 'au.exe' is the filename.

Also take a note of the app's vendor. In this case it is Acelogix. If that is not apparent, run the application and see the 'About' box, you can find it.

Now delete this folder ( in our example, 'C:\Program Files\Acelogix\Ace Utilities') and its shortcuts on the start menu (make sure the folder is not a system folder).

Step 3 : Clean Registry
If you are an advanced user and know how to use Regedit, open the key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications. Delete the sub-key matching your program's file name.

Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE and find a sub-key named after the vendor of the program (in our example, 'Acelogix'). If you see sub-keys for programs you wish to keep, delete only the sub-key for the program you're uninstalling. Otherwise, delete the vendor key entirely.  If you don't see the vendor's sub-key under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software, find the sub-key with the program's name (in our example, 'Ace Utilities') and delete it. Repeat this in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE key. If you can't find anything, don't worry and move on.

Alternative method for this step : Download our Registry Finder program. Search for the vendor's name ('Acelogix'),  application's filename ('au.exe') and application name 'Ace Utilities'.  From the results of each search, delete all the keys that start with HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE or  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE or HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ Applications. if in doubt, ignore.

Step 4 : Run registry cleaner
As the final step, run a registry cleaner like our Ace Utilities.