Vista - Problem Uninstalling Then Reinstalling Microsoft Flight Simulator X

Sorry, I accidentally posted this in the news groups as well. I didn't realize there were two gaming forums. I don't understand the difference. I posted in that one because I found it first from a Google search. Sorry for the repeat.

Hello folks, I'm new here. I'll try to keep this short and sweet.

On my machine which is Vista 64 business... about half of my games don't show up in my programs uninstall program in control panel, the programs list under the start button, nor do they ask to put a desktop shortcut up. I have to do that manually. The games run fine but the machine doesn't recognize them as being installed I guess....fully.

Well I had to uninstall FSX Deluxe/ acceleration because I was having some errors. No big deal happens to games sometimes. Do it in my other ones all the time. Well being it wasn't in the control panel I couldn't uninstall it, or so I thought. I never knew I could put the disk in to uninstall it. Found that out later. Anyway, I just deleted the folder and did a regedit search for Microsoft Flight Simulator X , Simulator X , and FSX and deleted them all and researched for them several times to make sure they are gone. Did a virus scan with Symantec and degragged the drive and restarted the computer and unplugged it.

Now when I reinstall it won't even have an option to reinstall. It has remove or repair and it won't let me do either.

Please, your help is MUCH appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
Jason

It's okay that you posted it in the newsgroups, that's a different forum. This one is specifically for the Vistax64 forums while the other one is a public MS forum on another site, and it's just been integrated into here for convenience.

Now, I don't know what to say about the programs not being listed in "Programs and Features" in the control panel. Some games do not ask to put a Desktop icon and may or may not do it automatically. Also, some games have a tick box that asks if you want program shortcuts in your Start menu, maybe you missed those as your were pressing Next during the install.

On the reinstall issue, my guess is that you deleted some entries in the registry that should not have been deleted. Your best bet here would be to do a System Restore to a point before you started messing with the registry.


Note (this is to everyone): While you may want your registry to be as clean and as tidy as possible by deleting all previous game and program entries yourself, it is usually never a good idea. Ever... unless you know exactly what you are deleting. "But it say [insert name of game here] in the registry and i uninstalled it ages ago." It doesn't matter, you will usually do more harm than good. If you must, use a good, known, recommended registry cleaner to clean your registry and leave it at that.

thanks.

anyone else?

Did you try a System Restore to a point before you messed with the registry?

Can't, it only goes back a day. I also discovered that you can click individual folders and restore them with a simple right click and select "restore previous versions". But it only goes back 1 day also. All too late.

There has to be something on my computer that is telling the disc that Flight Sim X is still on this computer. That either needs to be deleted or somehow whatever does the search needs to be disabled so I can reinstall it.

I also tried installing the demo hoping the disc would want to upgrade or when I did an uninstall it would whipe it all out... but it didn't.

I just don't know what to do. It looks like a reformat is the only way to get it so far, but I'm not going to resort to that.

i deleted symantec folder once as it asked me for an unknown password to be uninstalled...it kept giving a "windows installer" nag everytime i right click until i reinstalled system...there wouldnt be another way..i guess you should reinstall windows...shouldnt have tweaked the registry