Vocal Voices

Have installed Avast.
I am now trying to uninstall AVG. I go to Control Panel, click on programmes and scroll down to AVG. I then click on it and click on uninstall. A message appears " Please wait until the current program is finished uninstalling or being changed"
Have waited over an hour and nothing seems to happen.
Any help much appreciated.

Cruiser, close all windows that are open and see if the AVG uninstall window has been hidden. Also, look on the taskbar for an icon you do not recognise, that might bring up the AVG uninstaller and ask if you really want to continue.

This sounds like msiexec (the Microsoft installer/uninstaller).

Normally a reboot will fix this and allow you to continue. If it continues past a reboot then the installer has set a flag which needs to be cleared manually.

How did it go?

Suff wrote:How did it go?

I was also wondering. I have seen this happen many times with W7. It seems to lose its way, loses icons, loses uninstallers. It is why I moved to Comodo Program Manager http://programs-manager.comodo.com/ It works a treat and does a forced boot uninstall for those hard-to-get-rid-of little barstewards, then it does a reg clean up.

If it is left running in the background it will take a snapshot of the registry before a program installs and returns it to that state when an uninstall is carried out.

Thank you for your replies.
Am taking it back to my local friendly computer shop tomorrow morning. They will probably fix it in a few minutes free of charge. They are very good dealing with both minor and major problems.
During one visit, a man came in with a laptop. It was opened up and the inside cleaned with compressed air. Last week a woman came in with a tower not working. Case opened, something was unplugged. A small device attached, power on and connected to monitor showing working correctly. Again no charge.
I will probaly be going back later this year for an upgrade.

Cruiser, if you trust your local shop you have to support them. I absolutely agree with that.

These people might be small fry, but they do a great job and do not charge the earth. I think that Di, and others, have found that out.

Suff and I can only give generalised help, most of the time, and hopefully some of it works out. We are happy to help whenever we can, but feedback on what we say helps us as well.

I second what WM has said. If the msi installer has left the system in a state where it believes that the program is still uninstalling, then it is not trivial to get rid of. In my experience you need to use msizap (which you have to find), then you have to find files and enter long strings on the command line.

If you are not happy to do that then it's better that you take it to someone you know that is fair and will support you.

I've been asked several times, here in France, why I don't set up a PC shop or at least a clinic so that people can get the support. In the end the answer is the same, I simply couldn't make enough money at it because I simply would not charge real hourly rates to get the job done. Perhaps when I retire....

Supporting the local shop is vital, especially if they do these fixes for you, as these small fixes would normally be the bread and butter of a PC shop's income. 30 seconds to fix, £30 charged is the norm.....

Thank you WM and Suff. Everything is back to normal, even if I had to make a second trip to my local PC shop. I try to fix things myself but am afraid to do too much in case I make things worse. As the saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
My wife said I should have an upgrade which should prevent these problems. May be able to afford it when I have paid for the cruises we have booked.