install shield didnt, now its stuck

There are two programs on my XP laptop that failed to uninstall properly. Now I can neither reinstall or uninstall them.

Any one know what to dig into, to make the machine forget these things were installed?
I can't find any keys related to the software in the regestry.

Install sheild keeps it data somewhere?

Installshield does keep its installs in the registry, and a half way install can generally be cleaned up by deleting three major keys (though I can't remember which off the top of my head). I think this should only be done as a last resort however; so if you haven't tried it, I'd give the command line options a shot. Sometimes installing or uninstalling from the command line will work when launching the setup.exe doesn't (wierd that launching the uninstall from the command line works differently than from the gui, but it's one of the first thing Installsheild will tell you to do for a partial install). I believe the uninstall from the command line is setup.exe /x (or something close); you can get the command line options by typing setup.exe /? (or maybe it's -? or just ?, I don't remember off the top of my head). Sorry to be so vauge, but if this doesn't help and you're still having problems tomorrow, I'll break out the ol Installshield training manuals.

What I always do is open the registry editor ( run ---> regedit ) and then search for what ever the feild is in the add/remove programs menu, then delete each instance of the name. After that I will delete program files, start menu items and the local directory associalted with the program. I only do this when I can't install the program through software however. I dont think it's a good idea to this often.

Command line, setup /x from the CD worked. Created a fresh install. Before clicking the icon, only tried to uninstall, unsucessfully.

Thanks FB.

Great! Glad I could help.