Use SafeMSI To Uninstall In Safe Mode

SafeMSI lets you uninstall programs in Safe Mode. Safe Mode is a diagnostic feature of Windows that offers reduced functionality because many non-core programs are disabled from starting up. It is often used to fix problems that can’t be repaired within Windows, to remove viruses or because Windows will not start up normally.

In such cases Safe Mode is a good option to diagnose and fix the problem but it does have many restrictions – one in particular can cause significant problems: the Windows Installer service is disabled in Safe Mode.

This is an issue because that service is used by most Uninstall (and some Install) programs – without the service many programs therefore cannot be uninstalled in Safe Mode which makes it much harder to fix errors. For example, if you have installed a new program that causes Windows to ‘freeze up’ so that you can’t do anything, you are stuck.

In such a case you would like to boot into Safe Mode (to stop the faulty program from running) and give you a chance to uninstall it. Unfortunately, as the Installer service is disabled in Safe Mode, you won’t be able to uninstall the program…

If you try and start the Windows Installer service manually you will get the error “Could not start the Windows Installer service on Local Computer. This service cannot be started in Safe Mode“. Not helpful Microsoft…

SafeMSI Solution – Fortunately, there is an easy free way to fix this problem – a tiny program called SafeMSI which is available from the official site here.

Click on ‘Download The Code Here’ to download the program in a zip file. Then unzip the file to extract the program file SafeMSI.exe – it works on XP, Vista and Windows 7.

Within Safe Mode, just double click this SafeMSI.exe program file to run it and the Windows Installer service will immediately be switched on – now that it is running you can proceed to uninstall or install programs within Safe Mode :-)