From The Old New Thing today:
A customer asked the following question (paraphrased):
Does the Windows XP Add/Remove Programs control panel expose a scriptable object model? We want our program to open the Add/Remove Programs control panel and uninstall the programs of our competitors.
No, there is no object model for the Add and Remove Programs control panel, and it frightens me that you're even contemplating what you're suggesting.
Somewhat unethical to say the least...
It is actually semi-scriptable although it would be considered a hack. All the items in the Add/Remove programs applet are populated from the registry keys in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall. For each of those keys you can find the display name, and the 'UninstallString' which is the command to run their uninstaller.
We actually do this in Symphonia, although we uninstall a previous version of our own product (if requested by the user) rather than our competitors.
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