How do I uninstall an invisible program?

QI upgraded both Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements to the latest editions. All went well so I wanted to uninstall the earlier versions. However, only version 15 shows in Control Panel, and Ccleaner and Revo Uninstaller don’t see it either. Most online advice says it should be uninstalled from the Control Panel uninstaller, but if the program is not showing what is one supposed to do? Maurice Jones A First, are you sure the program is still installed? While older versions of both those programs can remain installed, it’s possible that when upgrading you ticked an option to remove them? That would certainly explain why none of the tools you’ve tried can ‘see’ these programs: it could simply be that they’re no longer there.

If you’re certain that’s not the case then the Windows Registry can offer some clues. Press Windows key+r, then type regedit and press Enter. Use the left-hand pane to navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\ Windows\currentversion and then expand the Uninstall heading by doubleclicking it. Look for an entry relating to one of the programs then click to select it. If no such entries exist then the program has almost certainly been uninstalled already.

Now, in the right-hand pane, look for an entry labelled Uninstallstring. Right-click this, then choose Modify (see screenshot). Click in the ‘Value data’ field then press Ctrl+a to select the whole string and press Ctrl+c to copy it: this is the path and program file to launch the uninstaller directly. To do this, once more press Windows key+r to open the Run box, press Ctrl+v to paste the file path and then press Enter and follow the prompts to uninstall.