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WinXPTutor's XP Resources

Windows XP Tips, Illustrations and registry edits

Some applications in Add/Remove Programs list are missing Change and Remove buttons ?

When you open Add/Remove Programs applet and click an application entry, you may notice that the Change, Remove (or Change/Remove) buttons may be missing, thus leaving only the application name entry there (Fig 1). Here is a method to make Windows show the Remove, Change (or the Change/Remove button together) buttons in the listing. (Fig 3)

RESOLUTION

  • Click Start, Run and type REGEDIT. This starts the Registry Editor. Navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\SOFTWARE
\Microsoft
\Windows
\CurrentVersion
\Uninstall
\<Program Name>

<Program Name> here is Adobe Acrobat 5.0 - Taken as an example

  • In the right-pane, do the following:

Double-click NoRemove (REG_DWORD) and set it to 0
Double-click NoModify   (REG_DWORD) and set it to 0

If NoRemove is set to 1, the Remove button will be unavailable
If NoModify    is set to 1, the Change button will be unavailable

Visual aid for the Registry editing procedure:

Final result is you'll get the Change and Remove buttons back (Or, the Change/Remove button together)