Manually Uninstalling Rhino 5

\\Do you need to uninstall Rhino 6 or newer? Go here.

Problem

During the removal of Rhino, you get an error message like “Can't Uninstall - Feature is unavailable (path)”.

This applies to Rhino 5.

Cause

The Windows Installer cache cannot find a file required for uninstall.

Solution

Manually remove Rhino and the Windows Installer registration for the product.

Try standard program uninstall

  1. Go to Windows Start menu
  2. Select Control Panel
  3. Select Add/Remove programs
  4. Find any Rhinoceros 5 entries and select uninstall

Note: You should only do the following procedures if uninstall fails from the Programs and Features section of the Control Panel.

Stop the McNeel Update Service

  1. From the Start menu, click Control Panel, then click Administrative Tools.
  2. In Administrative Tools, double-click Services.
  3. In the Services dialog, scroll down to McNeel Update (32-bit). (On 64-bit computers, you may have McNeel Update (64-bit) instead, or both, depending on which versions of Rhino 5 you have installed.)
  4. Right-click McNeel Update (32-bit), then click Stop.
  5. On 64-bit Windows, also stop the McNeel Update (64-bit) service.

Delete the Rhino install folder

  1. Browse the C:\Program Files\ folder and delete the Rhinoceros 5 directory.
  2. Browse the C:\Program Files (x86)\ folder and delete the Rhinoceros 5 directory.
  3. If you find the Rhinoceros 5.0 WIP folder in either of the above directories, delete it.
  4. Note that you might not be able to delete RhinoShExt.dll. That's ok. Leave the system folder with that one file and delete everything else.

Delete Registry keys

  1. Open the Registry Editor:
    1. On Windows XP: From the Start menu, click Run, then type RegEdit and press Enter.
    2. On Windows Vista and Windows 7: Click the Start button, then type RegEdit and press Enter.
  2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\McNeel\Rhinoceros.
  3. Delete the 5.0 key.
  4. Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\McNeel\Rhinoceros.
  5. Delete the 5.0 key.


Run Microsoft's Uninstall Fix

If Rhino 5 or Rhino 5 64-bit lingers and will not uninstall, try the following Microsoft fix.

  1. Visit http://support.microsoft.com/mats/program_install_and_uninstall
  2. Click Run Now

Possible error message that you might see: “The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable.”

Not recommended: Cleaning up the Windows Installer Cache

Warning: The following procedure may result in registry corruption and a 1402 error next time you install software. Only follow these steps if the above procedure did not allow you to uninstall Rhino.

  1. Download the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility.
  2. Unzip the contents of WindowsInstallerCleanupUtility.zip to a Windows Installer Clean Up folder on your desktop.
  3. Run msicuu.exe.
  4. Scroll down to (All Users) Rhinoceros 5.0 WIP (or All Users Rhino 5.0 WIP x64) on 64-bit systems.
  5. Click Remove.

If you followed these steps and then got a 1402 error, these instructions may resolve the 1402 error.