Add or Remove Program freezes

[TimN]

When I try to uninstall a program from the Control Panel's Add or Remove Program window, as soon as I click on the program I want to remove, Add or Remove completely freezes and rundll32.exe appears in the process list eating my CPU. Only when I manually terminate rundll32.exe from the task manager will Add or Remove unfreeze, but the program will not uninstall. Some programs however will uninstall without problem. Reinstalling a program with the problem makes no difference.

Could rundll32.exe be looking for missing uninstall files?

[Bear]

run a pit test if you see rundll32.exe any place other than your system 32 folder then chances are it is a virus

[TimN]

I don't think it's a virus. I've scanned for that. rundll32.exe starts as soon as I press uninstall, and as soon as I terminate it Add Remove unfreezes.

 

I've just checked. It's only in the system32 and prefetch folders as well as in the service packs

Edited June 30, 2006 by TimN

[TimN]

I used a program called Add/Remove Pro to see if that could work, but it gave the same hangs. However it did allow me to look at the uninstall strings for each program. If I followed them manually I was able to uninstall a couple of programs, but in most cases clicking on the setup.exe file the strings pointed to had no effect at all (no activation of rundll32.exe or hang).

Could the problem be that Windows Add & Remove programs hangs because it is being pointed to an invalid/non-operational uninstall exe and is waiting for something to happen?

 

 

Just had a look through the registry at all the programs uninstalls

* Everything that uninstalls OK either uses its own uninstall file or uses MsiExec.exe

* Everything that fails to uninstall uses some version of InstallShield Setup Launcher's Setup.exe

with an uninstall string looking something like

RunDll32 C:\PROGRA~1\COMMON~1\INSTAL~1\PROFES~1\RunTime\11\00\Intel32\Ctor.dll,LaunchSetup "C:\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\{F132AF7F-7BCA-4EDE-8A7C-958108FE7DBC}\Setup.exe" -l0x9 -removeonly

 

The common theme appears to be the RunDll32, Ctor.dll and Setup.exe but apart from that I'm lost. Any thoughts??

Edited July 1, 2006 by TimN