3 Tips to Remove a Program that Won’t Uninstall

• Dec 14, 2018
• By Kyle Nichols

For your PC’s health and wellbeing, and your own, keeping it clean and tidy is essential. If the system is very sluggish and the desktop cluttered, the reason could be a bunch of unwanted programs.

But cleaning up isn’t always easy. Other than the facts that some applications will leave traces behind or refuse to uninstall, perhaps Microsoft thinks that you will like to extent that they make them absolutely impossible to remove.

In such cases, let’s see what you can do.

Option 1: Removing Preinstalled Items

If a program does not provide any option to uninstall it at all, you may try to use the right-click trick. Take 3D building as an example. Find it in the Start menu under Windows Powershell, right-click it and select “Run as administrator”, and type the following to remove 3D Building:
PpxPackage *3dbuilder* | Remove-AppsPackage
See, when it comes to 3D Builder, the phrase will be 3dbuilder. Others:

• Alarms and Clock: windowsalarms
• Calendar and Mail: windowscommunicationsapps
• Camera: windowscarera

Option 2: Safe Mode

Software that put locks on the system are often the same ones which start with the computer and sit in the background. By using Windows Safe Mode, you can cut down on the amount that runs and, by choosing the appropriate option, you can prevent your machine (or problem apps) from talking to the internet, to do away with them without those troublesome locks hopefully.

If you’re a Windows 10 user, hold “Shift” and select “Restart” in the Start menu as you normally. Once you’re in, attempt the uninstall either through Control Panel or the software’s dedicated uninstaller.

Option 3: Going Back in Time

Since System Restore is an essential tool should something go wrong, it has been a key part of Windows for many generations. But there is one condition: You have set a restore point. Then you can simply click the system back to the exact state it was in prior to disaster striking.

Type “restore” in the Windows search box to find it, particularly if you’re attempting to install some program that smells a bit fishy 😉