The option to Force Install

[dalepbaker]

Shane,
thousands of people is having a major issue with spyware removing just enough of any VERSION of Internet Explorer in Windows 7,it says it is already installed or can not finish the install.
Going into the control ,Programs and Features,turn features on or off it doesn't show up at all.Also looking in View Installed Updates,nothing is there also.
We need you to remove the garbage causing these problems,so we can re-install or allow us a way to force a re-install of lets say Internet Explorer 11 64bit.
I personally have tried every possibility I could find on the internet,even the elevated command prompt maybe fixes,to find . Nothing works,we need a real Shane fix.
Thanks in Advance Shane.
 :thinking:

[Shane]

See if this helps
http://www.tweaking.com/forums/index.php/topic,2400.0.html

Shane

[Shane]

Try this
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/windows_installer_cleanup_utility.html

I use this tool to remove programs that are listed in the windows installer. So when I have a stubborn program that wont install because it thinks it is already installed I just remove it from the msi and then I am able to install the program.

See if that program shows IE in the list, if so have it remove them

Shane

[dalepbaker]

Try this
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/windows_installer_cleanup_utility.html

I use this tool to remove programs that are listed in the windows installer. So when I have a stubborn program that wont install because it thinks it is already installed I just remove it from the msi and then I am able to install the program.

See if that program shows IE in the list, if so have it remove them

Shane

Shane,
Does NOT shyow up in the installer cleanup utility 7.5

[Shane]

OK so IE isnt showing up in any installer or in the programs and features or in any of the installed updates? I havent had that happen on a system before, did you go check to see if IE is still in the program files folder?

Shane

[dalepbaker]

Shane,
My mistake,the folder is gone too. One of the most infected computer I have seen in 25 years. Only thing not working is Internet Explorer and the screwed up Internet options in the control panel.
Only you can figure out a way to clean the registry safely.
Again Shane
Thanks in Advance.
Dale

Going to Donate to you on this one too !

[Shane]

OK so a virus truly remove IE from the system, but left over registry keys to make windows think it is still installed.

I havent ran into an infection that has done that yet so I havent had the chance to see it and tear into it.

One option is a repair install. First you will need a Windows 7 cd that has SP1 already on it. You can grab an iso of that here if you dont have one
https://sites.google.com/site/linuxlablibrary/windows-iso

And if you havent done a repair install before this guide will show you
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html.

There is no telling what else that virus screwed up, so it is the best bet to get things back to normal. But if you are OCD like I am you want to know how to remove the left over IE keys so you can reinstall it

But IE has registry keys all over the place. The only ones I think we need to find are that ones that show it is installed.

I know what I could do, I can load up windows in vmware, no updates installed, just a fresh install. Then take a registry snap shot and then remove IE, reboot and then take another reg snap shot and then have the program that I do the snap shots with compare the two and tell me what is different. That would then tell me at least what default reg keys to look for

If you want me to do that let me know, I am pulling a late night working on the new toolbox program for the future windows repair pro I am writing. So I can do that tonight if you like.

Shane

[dalepbaker]

I mentioned do a Windows Repair and he said No,thought it might cause even more problems with the specialized programs he runs.
If you could do what you mentioned about the registry on new install,do it ,Please.
IE 8,IE9,IE10,IE11 all 64 bit says there are installed already. This is the ABSULTE Internet Explorer screw up I have ever seen. Thanks,there is a great programmer like you.

Thanks for the fast replies too.
Dale P. Baker

[Shane]

Alright, I got windows 7 64 bit installing in vmware now. Since I wont be doing any updates I should have the results back pretty soon

Shane

[Shane]

OK done, 310 registry keys get deleted, and a ton more get changed. But for now here is the 310 keys that get removed.

Also I started digging in seeing if I could find a way to make the internet explorer dissapper from the windows features and the best I found was getting the whole list to go away. If I dug in more I bet I could find out how to remove it, which in turns means I would know how to add it back to the features list

If you havent done it yet, download and run the system readiness tool
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947821

After that reboot and see if it helped at all.

I found this guide here which is one of the few ones that work where you can use the log from the system readiness tool to find regitry keys that are causing problems and remove them
https://www.raymond.cc/blog/fix-blank-or-empty-list-in-vista-turn-windows-features-on-or-off-optionalfeaturesexe/

See if any of this helps

Shane

[dalepbaker]

I tried the readiness tool as a diagnoctic to no avail. It told me everything was installed already as I already knew.
Already installed,but not working. These guys that did this to Internet explorer are very smart and using their smarts for evil.
Crime pays today,Genius Programmers like you are getting to be fewer and fewer.
Downloaded the file Shane,will let you know.

Dale

[Shane]

Then I say the trick here is to find what regkeys are making windows think IE is installed when it isnt. very odd that the sfc isnt replacing the files of IE unless they found a way to remove that from the sfc as well.

All you need to do is make windows see that IE isnt installed and then it will let you install it again.

I did find this command as well

Open an elevated CMD console (Run as administrator)

FORFILES /P %WINDIR%\servicing\Packages /M Microsoft-Windows-InternetExplorer-*11.*.mum /c "cmd /c echo Uninstalling package @fname && start /w pkgmgr /up:@fname /norestart"

Shane

[dalepbaker]

I have to remove the 310 one by one  or can a reg file be made to merge.
This thing is driving me nuts.
I tried a elevated cmd prompt to run a cmd similar to what you just posted.
Tell me exactly what you think my next step should be,Please.
Especially don't want to make thinks worse.
Could this be added to your awesome repair program.

Just for your info saw a Win 8.1 machine,HP Laptop that all apps disabled except desltop.
Even right corner pc setting to change disabled,your repair programs got right corner working again and doing a refresh of everything without changing files. Find out in the morning.

[Shane]

Try the cmd I posted first. And while you do that I will make a reg file real fast for you. I can make a quick script to auto add what is needed so I dont have to do each one by hand

Shane

[dalepbaker]

Awsome ,making my weekend look and feel better,yes I am OCD on computer issues. The excitement of have a programmer like you is exciting to me.
Please do the script,Please.

Thanks
Dale

[dalepbaker]

It will be Monday morning before I can try the Elevated CMD,He wanted  FireFox installed so he could use his computer over the weekend,of course I agreed with him.
You are on top of this and am very confident one of your fixes will do it . If you don't mind I will tell the guys at Bleeping Computer this ideas too. Lawrence Abrahams is a fighter of this evil too like you. Please give or deny before I brag on you there. All of us need to stick together and fight these gangs of crime loving nuts.

Dale

[Shane]

OK I had to make a actual program for you to run.

The reason why is the last 3 keys

HKU\S-1-5-21-155942035-1053763542-1221739838-1000\Software\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\>{26923b43-4d38-484f-9b9e-de460746276c}
HKU\S-1-5-21-155942035-1053763542-1221739838-1000\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows\SessionDefaultDevices\S-1-5-5-0-85531
HKU\S-1-5-21-155942035-1053763542-1221739838-1000\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\>{26923b43-4d38-484f-9b9e-de460746276c}

Have the current user sid in them, so in the exe I have it get the sid of the current user and replace it

I have the txt file with the program because I had to remove the top 3 lines from the one I gave you. Open the program and it will read the text file doing the replace on each line and will make a output.reg file for you that you can then look over 

This took me 5 min to make, it is just a simple find and replace and to put in the extra charaters that are needed for it to be the proper reg file format.

Shane

[Shane]

It will be Monday morning before I can try the Elevated CMD,He wanted  FireFox installed so he could use his computer over the weekend,of course I agreed with him.
You are on top of this and am very confident one of your fixes will do it . If you don't mind I will tell the guys at Bleeping Computer this ideas too. Lawrence Abrahams is a fighter of this evil too like you. Please give or deny before I brag on you there. All of us need to stick together and fight these gangs of crime loving nuts.

Dale

I email Lawrence Abrahams when I have any program updates since he hosts most of my programs on bleeping computer :-D

I have a knack for figuring out problems. But I work best when i can get my hands on the machine. If needed we can see about having me teamviewer into the computer so I can dig in if this doesnt fix it. I have a feeling finding a fix for this is going to be important if a new virus is doing this. Just like when there was a virus that marked every single file on the drive as hidden I made a tool to unhide them all

shane