cant uninstall or re-install original civ 4

[soggy9]

i uninstalled warlords then bts then tried to uninstall civ 4. i got this error:

Error Code: -5004 : 0x80041f42
Error Information:
*C:\Program Files\Common Files\InstallShield\Professional\RunTime\12\00\Intel32\iKernel.dll
>inc\CoCreate.cpp (44)
>SetupDLL\SetupDLL.cpp (1390)
PAPP:Sid Meier's Civilization 4

i then tried to reinstall civ 4 by going to the disk and trying to force it to reinstall but i got this error:

"The setup has detected that version 1.74.000 of sid meiers civilization 4 is already installed.
this setup installs an ealier version of civ 4 (1.61)
you will have to uninstall the previous version of civ 4 before installing this version."

im trapped. can't uninstall and cant reinstall. what do i do?

 

[soggy9]

i run windows vista

 

[mintegar]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=405572

This may or may not help, but an older thread on manual uninstall can be found here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=185281

Some additional info on the GUIDs of the expansions that you have to look up in the registry:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=245402

 

[soggy9]

Delete this folder:
C:\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\{CFBCE791-2D53-4FCE-B3FB-D6E01F4112E8}

Then open regedit (Start > Run... > regedit) and delete these entries:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{CFBCE791-2D53-4FCE-B3FB-D6E01F4112E8}

^^^im following these instructions and have come to a problem. im not sure what he means by "regedit" and i dont see any button for "run" under what im guessing is "start" on the bottom-left corner of my screen. im using windows vista unfortunately...

 

[mintegar]

I'm not on a windows box atm, but if Vista is the same as 7 i think you can either:

• Press the key combination Windows-R to bring up Run dialog
• Enter regedit into the search box directly in start menu
• Enter cmd into that search box to bring up a command prompt, and then start regedit from there

/edit: be very careful in what you do with regedit. If you nuke the wrong thing there it can hose your whole system.

 

[kiwitt]

/edit: be very careful in what you do with regedit. If you nuke the wrong thing there it can hose your whole system.

Agree ...

Another tool you can use is ccleaner and it works to analyse the registry for any residue of old programs.