Error while uninstalling Premiere Elements 4, anyone got a manual procedure?

Question

Hi and thanks for helping!
I've got a Win-XP/Pro-SP3 system.
I've had the Premiere Elements 4 + Photoshop Elements 6 bundle installed for quite some time and upgraded to the bundle with v7 of both apps last year. Apparently, while installing the 7s, it did not uninstall the prior versions.  To reclaim some disk space, I'm trying to uninstall the older versions.
The uninstaller for Premiere Elements 4, (run from the add/remove programs tool on the control panel or directly from the distribution media), pops an Error 1606: Cannot access network location  :. and quits. I've tried the faith healing steps from both the Adobe Knowledgebase as well as the referenced articles from the Microsoft Knowledgebase (sort of completely uninstalling and reinstalling MS Office since I really don't think that's the issue). No joy.
The uninstaller for Photoshop Elements 6 runs to completion uninstalling that program. The installers for both version 7s of the apps run (although I abort them before they actually start changing files). The Acrobat Standard installer runs fine.  It's just the Premiere Elements 4 installer that is quitting.
I have a suspicion that someplace along the line, a registry scan process removed some key that it thought was safe but is crucial to getting the uninstaller to run.
I can certainly delete the appropriate program files\adobe subfolder, but there are also bits and pieces over in the Common folders plus in the docs&settings appdata folders.  And there are lots of registry keys.
I read the "delete the folder and run a registry cleaner" suggestion which is certainly a move of last resort.  But does anyone have a manual uninstall that identifies all the folders, random files, and keys that should be deleted to remove Premiere Elements 4 without impacting any of the other AdobeApps?
Thanks again for reading and thanks in advance for any assistance.

Answer 1

Hi Hunt,
Excellent suggestions regarding going to the backups to find the missing key.  It didn't work, but it was still a great suggestion.  Since I couldn't get the (un)installer to run past the point of checking space requirements before the 1606 error, I couldn't run the repair cycle.  I contemplated the system restore carefully, but the restore point would probably have been well over a year ago. Good thought on the after market uninstallers but I agree that unless they were around to watch the 'goes-in', there's no telling what they'll to on the 'goes-out'.  Given the crap-shoot of trying to pick a reputable after market uninstaller to blindly remove APE4 without hosing anything else, I opted to take fate into my own hands...
So, I spooled a copy of the drive off to the back-up unit, flushed the folders, swept about 700 keys from the registry [700!!], and will keep fingers crossed for a little while.  Cursory checks on the other Adobe apps appear stable but we'll see what happens when I actually try to do a project.
In hindsight, apart from possibly being able to check the registry for each and every file before removal and compiling some list of all the things it was going to do for human review, the basic process a blind uninstaller would do use is pretty much what I did. And since most of those tool are designed for unskilled operators, I probably wouldn't have found one that was quite so dilligent in its reporting and actions anyway.
Thanks for the guidance -- you at least confirmed that the path I was planning through the wilderness was reasonable.  I'd pour you a glass of one of our fine NY State wines right here, but it would just gum up the keyboard.
Best regards,
joe