Cannot uninstall NetBeans 7.3

make clean removes any intermediate or output files from your source / build tree. However, it only affects the source / build tree; it does not touch the rest of the filesystem and so will not remove previously installed software.

If you're lucky, running make uninstall will work. It's up to the library's authors to provide that, however; some authors provide an uninstall target, others don't.

If you're not lucky, you'll have to manually uninstall it. Running make -n install can be helpful, since it will show the steps that the software would take to install itself but won't actually do anything. You can then manually reverse those steps.

I had the exact same thing happen to me. I put a co-workers image on my PC (same hardware) that contained a baseline suite of applications, including Netbeans. I actually happened to have Netbeans 6.9 and Windows 7 too, but that has nothing to do with it.

I deleted my co-workers profile, and that is why I got the error you speak of. Some needed files are contained in C:\Users\JohnB\. Here are the folders that Netbeans installs in your user profile folder:

I simply had my co-worker copy and send them to me, I put them in the profile they got deleted from, then the uninstall process worked perfectly.

Here's the post that pointed me in the right direction:

• cannot uninstall Netbeans 6.7 Beta

Here's a related post that explains how to clean up after incomplete installations, but I did not have these rogue registry entries on my PC:

• Cleaning Up After Incomplete Installations