Chief_waterchanger

I need to have someone with computer repair experience to answer a question for me.

I have a program that I know how to make it run, but in order to do so I must uninstall and reinstall it due to broken pathways or some such issue. The problem arises when I try to uninstall the program (which I have done succcessfully before on other people's computers with this same program.)

I have tried two ways of uninstalling. The first way I tried is the Add/remove programs found under the computer's control panel. The second way is through the file within the program itself that runs the installation and uninstallation wizard. Both exhibit the same problem when attempted. The pop-up comes up in the lower right corner of the screen with a green progress bar that gets to about 75% complete on the uninstallation then it skips backwards to about 50% completion and disappears. I am then prompted, "Are you sure you want to remove the program and all related components?" I click "yes" and that prompting's pop-up disappears, as it does every other time you remove a program, but then nothing happens. It doesn't remove the program and when attempted again the outcome is precisely the same. I've tried both methods dozens of times in the last 3 days and have tried contacting the company that designed the program.

The company's (EA games) customer service page will not let a customer service e-mail through. It gives 3 or 4 reasons, which are the same every time, and one of which is to do with timing out. I don't understand that either, because it pops up in under 2 seconds. I also tried to e-mail them through replying to an e-mail received about setting up the account with their site that states, "If you have any other customer service questions you may either reply to this e-mail or go to our customer service page." So I replied and got an automated response saying that e-mail account isn't setup to accept incoming e-mails.

Basically I am tired of dealing with their company and if I can not get this product removed I will never deal with their company or it's products again. Does anyone know anyway of digging into my computer's registry to remove the program without using the add/remove program or the program's own install/uninstall wizard file since neither work? (I am not a computer whiz, but I am definately not a technical idiot.)

Thanks to any whizzes out there that are able to help.


PS: I would like to avoid having to wipe my harddrive if at all possible.

shecky95

Just a suggestion did you try a Restoration on it(like go back to this certain day ) on the computer)? Like goin gback to before you installed the program, sometimes that works on mine.I usually go back 1 day befor eI installed the program. Hope that helps!

Ghostfish

See if this article helps you out:

http://www.pctoday.com/Editorial/art...=&bJumpTo=True

Chief_waterchanger

Thanks Shecky. Um. Rather than me spend hours looking for where to go to restore to previous days would you be able to tell me where I could try looking for the Windows Vista?

Thanks Ghostfish, but sadly all I can find on that link is how to do it for windows XP. Windows Vista is different enough that it doesn't have the same files or access points that the site explains, but thank you again for trying.

Chief_waterchanger

I found the restore center on my computer and will begin fiddling with that, Thanks.

mathas

Unfortunately, you can't uninstall a program by editing the registry.

I can probably walk you through removing the registry entries for the application, but you will also need to delete the files that were installed. Do you happen to know where on the disk those files are?

Also, what is the name of the application?

Chief_waterchanger

The program is Spore: Creature creator. The location of the files on the disk? Sorry, but I lost you there. The disk as in on my computer? I have no idea where they are now, because I entered 'Spore' into the search function and removed all the files I could find a couple of days ago in an attempt to remove the program.

Sorry if my lack of "whizzness" is blatantly obvious and annoying, but thank you for helping.

Triple Helix

Go into safe mode and uninstall it there!

Just reboot and then the Bios screen will come on and just after that start tapping F8 before windows starts loading which will give you a menu screen and just scroll down to safemode and press enter wait till it fully loads and then go to Add/Remove and try to uninstall when that completes just boot back into normal mode and install the program again and it should be fine!

HTH,

Daniel

mathas

Obvious, yes; annoying, no

By disk, I mean your hard drive. To manually uninstall, you would need to know if the installer places the Spore files in C:\EA\Spore, C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\, etc. You may or may not have gotten everything by searching for "Spore", I don't know.

Triple Helix's advice about uninstalling from safe mode is always worth a try. I'd definitely suggest starting there, and see what happens.

Chief_waterchanger

Tried the safe mode thing and got the same results except that the green progress bar didn't jump backwards, but rather finished the full progression and still didn't get the program removed. I tried 3 times in safe mode.

I looked on Dino's computer (because it works fine on his computer) and it was located in C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\SPORE\Sporebin\SporeCreatureCreator.exe I remember deleting 'Sporebin' the other day... I hope that is a good thing.

mathas

Do you have any other EA programs on that computer?

If not, and it were my machine, I would delete the entire Electronic Arts folder inside C:\Program Files\. If you do have other EA programs, just delete the SPORE folder within C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\.

Now for removing the registry entries, there are two places to look. The first step is to open the registry editor, which can be done by clicking the start button, choosing 'Run', and typing 'regedit' (without the quotes).

You should see something similar to this, though this screenshot was taken in Windows XP:


Under both the HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE nodes should be folders named SOFTWARE (click the plus sign next to the node name if you need to expand it to see subfolders). Check the SOFTWARE folders in each of those nodes, and depending on the presence of other EA applications, delete the entire EA folder or just any Spore-related subfolders.

Does that make sense?

This advice should all be taken with caution, by the way. The registry is one place you probably don't want to start deleting things from unless you're confident or willing to restore.

Chief_waterchanger

Thanks. I got the file deleted, and lookie there, that just goes to show that the common person thinks they delete a lot of stuff that they don't. It looks basically the same for Vista.

Gonna fiddle around back on the non-dangerous parts of the computer to see if that did the trick or not. Will update in a few moments.

Slug

I just want to add that EA Games isn't what it used to be.

You might also run spy ware/anti virus just to check to see if anything is messing with it.

Chief_waterchanger

Will try the spy ware and anti virus thing here in a second. Update thus far: It is still showing under add/remove programs and is still not uninstalling.

I definately am getting tested on my theory "anger/frustration is someone or something gaining control of your emotions it ain't worth letting anyone or anything control me."

Will see if the spyware or antivirus catches anything, thanks.

Triple Helix

I agree with that! You can do an online scan to check!

http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/

luna

Something else that will be causing problems that other people haven't noticed or mentioned:

When you manually delete files from a program before trying to uninstall it, you will almost ALWAYS cause an error. The files the computer will be looking to uninstall won't be there, and you'll be unable to uninstall. Try to reinstall the program, so that the files it's looking for will be restored to where they need to be, THEN uninstall the program.

EDIT: I can also direct you to a free registry cleanup utility, if you're interested, for after you've uninstalled your program. It's safer than monkeying with your registry on your own.

Chief_waterchanger

Poop.. That's about the best I can say for the situation I seem to have gotten myself in. I can not reinstall but it won't fully uninstall. So, I guess my options are pretty limited short of wiping the harddrive since the restoring to before I installed it doesn't seem to be a doable option either?

luna

Well, if you can load a system restore point from before you installed the program, that should work...if not, backing up EVERYTHING onto CDs, memory sticks, or whatever you've got for removable storage, and doing a complete system restore would do the job.

There is always the option of bringing it to your local Best Buy...the Geek Squad guys should be able to help you through it if you're worried about messing anything up doing it alone. I figure if you had any local computer geek friends to call upon, you would have done so a few days ago?

Chief_waterchanger

LOL. Yes, Candice, I wish I had computer geek friends. My older bro left for his senior year of college just before this situation arose, so I was out of luck. Thanks. Luckily this is happening before I begin using this laptop for business, so if I lose any data on it nothing serious is lost. I think currently the worst I run the risk of losing is gaming information and the time to reinstall everything.

Thanks ladies and gents for the help and I suppose after a few hours of sleep I will make a list of all the programs on my comp that I care to reinstall so that I don't forget anything and fix this issue for good.

This goes to show that if you don't know what you are doing be ready to suffer the consequences of learning to DIY.

luna

shecky95

Well I tried unfortunately I dont have Vista my mom does and I am not to enthused about it. Many people I have talked to are wanting XP back. My mom likes it but I dont. People have different feelings opinions about it I guess.

Chief_waterchanger

Thank you Shecky. It was great of you to try to help, and in your own ways each of you helped me to realize what NOT to do the next time I have issues.

Thanks again, everyone, for your individual roles in enriching my technical knowledge.

Chief_waterchanger

I just got my computer back up and running after saving all the information and pictures I wanted and restoring the computer to original factory specs. Everything went smoothly.

To be honest I was expecting it to be much harder than it was, because I hear so many people whine about having to manually wipe their harddrive. Windows Vista makes that easy! Didn't even need a recovery disk, just click yes or no on a couple of questions and the rest is automated. (Assuming, of course, that you haven't got a corrupted recovery file on your hard disk. )

luna

Actually, it's like that with XP, too...it's more time-consuming than difficult, especially when you have to reinstall software and security updates.

Good to hear you've got it up and running again.