Microsoft Knowledge Base Article
This article contents is Microsoft Copyrighted material.
©2005-©2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Terms
of Use |
Trademarks
Article ID: 2249920 - Last Review: July 28, 2010 - Revision: 3.0
Add and Remove programs comes up blank OR takes a long time to populate information
Add/Remove Programs may appear to hang or take a long time to populate program information. This can occur if there are a large number of files under a first level folder off the root of a drive. This is by design and is due to application compatibility. Add/Remove Programs uses Rundll32.exe to search under "Program Files" and also "Documents and Settings\<user profile>". However, some applications install directly to a folder on the root of the drive, and in this case would not be found by Add/Remove Programs. Because of this, Add/Remove Programs is designed to search first level folders located on the root of all local drives. If a first level folder has a very large number of files, this operation can take an extended period of time to complete.
This issue applies only to local drives or drives that appear as local, such as SAN drives. Mapped drives or other network drives are not searched by Add/Remove Programs.
This behavior is by design and thus it is recommended to not have first level folders housing a large number of files. Moving the files to a second level folder or deeper will alleviate this issue. You can alternately uninstall applications manually without using Add/Remove Programs. Each installed application will typically have an uninstall string associated with it that will allow manual uninstall. To find the uninstall string, do the following:
· 1. Open the registry editor (Regedit.exe) and browse to the following location:
o HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
· 2. Each application should be listed under this key. Find the application by either its name or GUID.
3. 3.Copy the value for UninstallString and paste this into Start- Run. This should uninstall the application in the same manner as Add/Remove Programs.
Note This is a "FAST PUBLISH" article created directly from within the Microsoft support organization. The information contained herein is provided as-is in response to emerging issues. As a result of the speed in making it available, the materials may include typographical errors and may be revised at any time without notice. See
Terms of Use
(http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=151500)
for other considerations.
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2
- Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2
Community Feedback System
Very often, it takes hours to solve a problem. Very often, you've looked high
and low, and have tried a lot of solutions. When you finally found it, chances
are, it was because someone else helped you. Here's your chance to give back.
Use our community feedback tool to let others know what worked for you and what
didn't.
Please also understand that the community feedback system is not warranted to be
correct, it's simply a system that we've built to let people try and help each
other. If something in a feedback response doesn't make sense to you, or you're
not comfortable making changes that the feedback talks about (like registry
edits), please consult a professional.
Thank you for using kbAlertz.com Feedback System.
-- Scott Cate