I can't uninstall the Ask Toolbar updater despite having admin access?

Solution 1:

I looked in the registry for "ask toolbar" and found the uninstaller entry at:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall{79A765E1-C399-405B-85AF-466F52E918B0}

This has a "DisplayIcon" entry that points to:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Ask.com\favicon.ico

However, "C:\Program Files (x86)\Ask.com\" doesn't exist.

I think that the uninstaller entry was left over from when I actually uninstalled the toolbar but that the uninstaller left this behind. Therefore just deleting this registry entry is all that I need to do.

This would imply that the error message is misleading. The uninstall process is trying to run the uninstall command which is returning a "file not found" error, but the the program is interpreting that as "you don't have permission to run the file" - hence the particular error message.

This solution would be a general one for all cases where there is an entry in the programs list but where there's no trace of the program on the computer's hard drive any more.