Sometimes your Windows machine just gets stuck. It won't let you install new software, or uninstall old software. You may get errors about missing patches or install files. This problem can also happen with Office apps and MS Money if you have cloned (made a bootable backup of) your hard drive, using e.g. Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools™.
For cases like that, when all other options have failed, you can use the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility. It will go through and clean up (delete) the installer information itself, while leaving the applications and their data untouched. This has enabled me to install Acrobat 8 when there were uninstall problems with Acrobat 7, and to install the latest version of QuickTime after there were uninstall problems with that as well. (Note: if you are having persistent problems of this type, you may want to consider doing a complete backup and clean reinstall of Windows, as your registry may be destablising.)
Because it leaves your apps and data intact, it is a fairly safe tool.
A more dangerous but still useful one is .NET Installation Cleanup Utility. It can help you when you need .NET but are running into install issues. However be aware
This cleanup tool will delete shared files and registry keys used by other versions of the .NET Framework. If you run the cleanup tool, you will need to perform a repair or reinstall for all other versions of the .NET Framework that are on your computer to get them to work correctly afterwards.
In other words, after the cleanup you will have to reinstall or repair any versions of .NET you need. (e.g. to fix .NET 2.0 after running cleanup on .NET 1.1, go into Control Panel->Add or Remove Programs, locate the entry for "Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0", select "Change/Remove" and then select "Repair").
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