Hide Installed Applications from Add/Remove Programs

Normally, anyone would prefer to "see" all their applications installed, to be listed under the Add/Remove Programs window of Control Panel (for Windows, obviously!). I had a particular need to hide or prevent an application from being listed. Went through to Google search - found a neat little trick which is probably the safest.

Assuming you know about editing keys in the Windows registry -

1. Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{installed application}


2. You may not be able to see the application by its name. Search for the application name under the Uninstall folder.


3. When you find your application, which will have a folder for itself. Under this, you will find atleast two entries - DisplayName and UninstallString.


4. Rename the names of the keys (not their values) to say DisplayName_1 and UninstallString_1.

This should prevent them from being listed; and also facilitate to unhide them when you want to upgrade/apply a patch for that application.