Sebastian Thrun: Google's Driverless Car
Tumblr 101: Tips And Tricks To Get Started
How to Add/Hide software in Add/Remove programs
Ever want to remove some of those little programs you never use that ship with Windows XP? Sure, they're not taking up much space, and hard drives are cheap these days. But it's the principle of the thing, right? And some of these programs don't show up on the Windows XP Add/Remove programs menu.Well, it appears that the only thing keeping you from uninstalling WordPad, Pinball, or other programs is one word in the sysoc.inf file. You can find sysoc.inf by navigating to \Windows\INF\sysoc.inf. If you open the file in Notepad, you should see a list of programs, most of which will be followed by the word "hide."
All you have to do is delete the word "hide," and save the file. Now when you go to Add/Remove programs, the unhidden programs will be there. Note that not every program can be removed just because you've unhidden it. For example you can't uninstall terminal services.
Sysoc.inf doesn't seem to exist in Windows Vista. Does anyone know if there's a similar trick for uninstalling hidden programs in Vista?
[via IntelliAdmin]
Comments
9
Subscribe to commentsScottJun 23rd 2007 9:05AM
Nice find. A little half-assed in your description, though...
Before doing any of this, you should back up the original file. Secondly, remove only the word "hide" (leave the extra comma). Also, they will now appear in the "Add/Remove Windows Components," not the "Add or Remove Programs."
MikaelJun 23rd 2007 7:35PM
Does anyone know if this is possible to do with normal applications? I have a grandmother that tends to uninstall drivers/important programs every once in a while, so if I could just hide them that would save me a couple of hours of work every week :)
Alex LaFreniereJun 24th 2007 9:16PM
Good job ripping this off of DL.TV. No, I'm sure they don't mind. Keep up the good work on the blog!
Brad LinderJun 24th 2007 9:20PM
Alex: did you note that the read link points to a Microsoft knowledge base article from October 30th, 2006?
This tip has been around for a while, and we first saw it from IntelliAdmin, which is why we cited them in the post. If DL.TV also ran something on it, that's because they independently discovered this trick, either from IntelliAdmin, Microsoft, or one of the many other places on the web that explain how to show the hidden programs.
We thought our audience might be interested in this tip, so we passed it along.
AlexJun 25th 2007 8:10AM
This trick is so old. Rather to do it with XPlite. This tiny app let you uninstall all the hide WinXP apps and much more functions.
akhJun 25th 2007 9:56AM
For the technically challenged just download this simple app:
http://ltips.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-to-hide-programs-in-add-or-remove.html
But good to know what happens behind the scene. The app is from novell.
KlippothJun 27th 2007 11:56AM
I didn't create this trick, but hell, I've been using this trick for at least 2 years, if not 3 or so....I can't recall where I found it online, but it's been around forever....
LauraOct 22nd 2007 12:50PM
I am needing to uninstall my adobe premiere 3 to reinstall it, it says when I try to uninstall that the windows installer can not be accessed, what do I need to do? Thank you for your help... Laura
BadhushaAug 5th 2007 2:41PM
go to regedit and
just delete unwanted items from following key folder
KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
:-) njoy urself.
thanx n' regardz
badhusha
http://www.adiyakkamangalam.com