What to do when that $&%*#$ program won’t uninstall!

I recently had a fit trying to uninstall the WeatherBug program (I refuse to link to them) on my kids’ computer. And the worst part is that I never wanted the WeatherBug program on the computer in the first place.

It started when my son asked me if he could download an add-on to his favorite game, Minecraft. I asked him where he got the link to the download from and he replied that it was from a YouTube video from what seemed like a reliable source.

Despite my skepticism, I let him download the add-on. The add-on was free but during installation it tried to trick you into installing a ton of extra toolbars and software.

Personally, I think this type of deception ought to be illegal but it isn’t. And before I could put the brakes on the installation, my son had been tricked into installing over a half-dozen new programs on the computer.

Uninstall h-e-double-hockey-sticks

This is where the fun began. I had to open the Control Panel on the computer and manually uninstall every new program that was forced on my son during the Minecraft add-on installation. I did this by sorting the list of installed programs in descending order based on each program’s installation date.

Luckily, most of them played nicely and uninstalled. Except for WeatherBug. It just kept throwing me an error telling me it couldn’t find the installation package and that I should help locate it. Pfffft!

After 5 minutes of searching for the file it was looking for, I gave up and hit Google. Within a few seconds I discovered lots of people have trouble uninstalling WeatherBug. The only good thing about this was that the same page included nicely detailed instructions on how to manually delete the WeatherBug program files and registry entries. I followed the instructions and thought my WeatherBug problems were behind me.

It was still there!

Only one problem. WeatherBug still showed up as an installed program in my Windows Control Panel. Most people could ingore this and go on with their lives but not me. I wanted EVERY trace of WeatherBug gone!

Back to Google. And that’s when I found Microsoft’s Fix it webpage titled Fix problems with programs that can’t be installed or uninstalled. Right there listed as the 3rd bullet under What it fixes was Resolves problems that prevent programs from being completely uninstalled and blocking new installations and updates. Beautiful!

I clicked the big Run now button on the webpage, followed the prompts and within a few minutes, WeatherBug was gone!

If you are having any problems of your own uninstalling WeatherBug or any other rogue software, I highly recommend checking out this page.

Meanwhile, I’ll wait for someone to pass legislation to make it illegal to trick you into installing one piece of software when you think you’re installing another.