Why does my app’s uninstaller disappear from the Start menu?

Raymond Chen

A customer reported that their installer creates a shortcut on the Start menu called Uninstall Contoso Deluxe, but a few seconds after their installer completes, the Uninstall Contoso Deluxe icon disappears from the Start menu. The main Contoso Deluxe shortcut is still there. What’s going on?

The uninstaller shortcut is removed from the Start menu to reduce clutter. You can uninstall apps from the Apps page in Settings, or from the Programs and Features control panel (formerly known as Add or Remove Programs). You can also get to the uninstaller by right-clicking Contoso Deluxe and selecting Uninstall.

Adding an uninstaller icon to Start menu is triply redundant, and it puts uninstallers in a high-traffic area of the user interface, when users are mostly looking for apps to run, not apps to uninstall.

The uninstaller shortcut is still there, so your uninstaller won’t get confused when it tries to delete the uninstaller shortcut. But the Start menu doesn’t show it.

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Author

Raymond Chen

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

19 comments

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Charles Milette March 30, 2019

It’s a bit annoying when a Cortana search shows the uninstaller as first result when searching the program’s name though.
Kalle Niemitalo March 22, 2019

Two folders in my Start Menu contain shortcuts titled only “Uninstall” (the file names are “Uninstall.lnk”, no localization tricks), and Windows 10 Pro Build 17763.rs5_release.180914-1434 isn’t hiding them. It does hide shortcuts in which “Uninstall” is followed by some other words, however.
I don’t really care whether the shortcuts appear but I’m curious why it was implemented this way.
Henrik Andersson March 20, 2019

So I wasn’t the only one who thought “this seems like an useability hazard”. I mean seriously, this is as bad as the nuke the world button in Monsters vs Ailiens.
Langbein, Thilo March 20, 2019

I don’t want Microsoft to take care of my start menu!!!f a installer makes an uninstall entry I want to see this. MS isn’t smarter than me. Thanks for trying AI.
- Ralf Berkvens March 21, 2019
  
  MS isn’t trying to be smarter than YOU. It’s trying to be smarter (and succeeding) than the devs who think that they need to clutter the start menu with uninstall options which can be foound in three other places.
- W S March 20, 2019
  
  The recommendation for a very long time has been “Don’t put shortcuts to the following items on the Start screen: Uninstallers, Help, Settings, Homepage, Wizards.” “Don’t create shortcuts to features or functionality that can be launched from within the app itself.”In Vista this became more important because of Start Menu search. In Windows 8 it became critical to reduce clutter on the Start Screen.