Missing programs when add/remove programs populates

[megawat]

ok i did something again, should let the damned thing alone and just use it.about 8 days ago i loaded sp2.and everything seemed ok (did not look @ add/remove programs).i got bored today and updated my bios using@bios (my current bios was 1003+ so i could use this utility).everything looked good, machine re booted to xp and then i rebooted and inspected bios settings everything looked good.still bored i downloaded windows media player 10. when i started it after reboot i got an "unknown" error message and the playlist screen had a large white square where the data should be. soooo iwent to add/remove and low and behold most of my programs didn't populate (show up).i restored to yesterday and add/retore was still bad. i opened /closed 10 or so programs and chkd add/remove,the ones i opened only showed up in the sort by use date.the other thing is that the last used date was 12/22/03 ??????? i then chkd the xp date and it was today as was the cmos date/time. should i restore to pre sp2 or did i when i updated the bios.

[GaryGBM]

Re: Missing programs when add/remove programs populates

have you tried ticking the show updates button? When i tick and untick mine, a lot more things disapear than just the normal updates.

Gary

[megawat]

Re: Missing programs when add/remove programs populates

GARY ,sorry i was away for a few days bringing my daughter her new computer. yep tried that ,not picking up the programs! opened C: via my computr clkd programs folder & it has more than add/remove programs but still not close to all that are in the all programs list.btw i can open all of them & they run fine!WT*?my xppro cd (legal) won't go over sp2 is that normal? i'm not to bad @ hardware but awful @ software "babe in the woods". maybe i should save data on spare hdd and start over oooorr just live with it?

[GaryGBM]

Re: Missing programs when add/remove programs populates

no problem, I have been busy myself

First off, yes, its quite normal for an older version of XP not to install over SP1 or SP2, it will think its an older version and not install for safety reasons. You can use it, but you would have to tell it to remove the old version of windows ( which will trash everything! )

If you need to remove some programs which are not listing, you can always go the long ish route, goto into program files directory, then into one of the programs thats not listed, and look for an uninstall application within the directory.

Looking at Microsoft's site, once something is not listed in add/remove, there is no way to recover it unless you reinstall the applications over the top :/

I would suggest trying the manual uninstall from the programs directory, if that does not work, your options are to either live with it, or start fresh, I would however recommend you create an XP CD which includes SP2 Slipstreamed if you have the ability to write CD's. If you need to know how to Slipstream SP2 into an XP Cd, just let me know

Gary