Solved Remove Cygwin Console from Start

I recentely decided to go from the x64 version of cygwin to the x86 version (because the x64 version doesn't support unison), and I can't get rid of the shortcut in Start; Clicking uninstall takes me to 'uninstall a program', but there is now cygwin uninstaller, it needs to be done manually. While installing cygwin, I checked the box that said 'Add to Start'. Any ideas?

All help appreciated!
Sandr

Hello Sandr, and welcome to Eight Forums.

While on your Start screen, you should be able to right click on the shortcut's tile that you want to remove, and click on "Unpin from Start" to remove it from Start without uninstalling the program.
If you uninstall the program, it will also remove it from Start along with from the PC.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

The thing is that there is no automated uninstall for cygwin, folders and shortcuts need to be removed manually. There isn't an 'Unpin from Start' either, only the uninstall option which isn't available. I'm guessing this shortcut could be created by a registry key, but I don't know my way around the registry enough to figure it out.

I found this for how to uninstall all of Cygwin.

Cygwin FAQ

2.19.

How do I uninstall all of Cygwin?

Setup has no automatic uninstall facility. The recommended method to remove all of Cygwin is as follows: If you have any Cygwin services running, remove by repeating the instructions in Cygwin FAQ for all services that you installed. Common services that might have been installed are sshd, cron, cygserver, inetd, apache, postgresql, and so on. Stop the X11 server if it is running, and terminate any Cygwin programs that might be running in the background. Exit the command prompt and ensure that no Cygwin processes remain. Note: If you want to save your mount points for a later reinstall, first save the output of mount -m as described at Cygwin Utilities. Delete the Cygwin root folder and all subfolders. If you get an error that an object is in use, then ensure that you've stopped all services and closed all Cygwin programs. If you get a 'Permission Denied' error then you will need to modify the permissions and/or ownership of the files or folders that are causing the error. For example, sometimes files used by system services end up owned by the SYSTEM account and not writable by regular users. The quickest way to delete the entire tree if you run into this problem is to change the ownership of all files and folders to your account. To do this in Windows Explorer, right click on the root Cygwin folder, choose Properties, then the Security tab. If you are using Windows XP Home or Simple File Sharing, you will need to boot into Safe Mode to access the Security tab. Select Advanced, then go to the Owner tab and make sure your account is listed as the owner. Select the 'Replace owner on subcontainers and objects' checkbox and press Ok. After Explorer applies the changes you should be able to delete the entire tree in one operation. Note that you can also achieve this in Cygwin by typing chown -R user / or by using other tools such as CACLS.EXE. Delete the Cygwin shortcuts on the Desktop and Start Menu, and anything left by setup.exe in the download directory. However, if you plan to reinstall Cygwin it's a good idea to keep your setup.exe download directory since you can reinstall the packages left in its cache without redownloading them. If you added Cygwin to your system path, you should remove it unless you plan to reinstall Cygwin to the same location. Similarly, if you set your CYGWIN environment variable system-wide and don't plan to reinstall, you should remove it. Finally, if you want to be thorough you can delete the registry tree Software\Cygwin under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and/or HKEY_CURRENT_USER. However, if you followed the directions above you will have already removed everything important. Typically only the installation directory has been stored in the registry at all.

Click to expand...

This is the guide I started out with.
As you can see in Point 4, it only says 'delete Start shortcuts' which is easy enough in Win7, but doesn't solve the issue in Win8.

You should also be able to go to the hidden Start Menu system folder below in File Explorer to delete them.

For Your Account Only:
C:\Users\User-Name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

For All User Accounts: (must be administrator)
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs


If all else fails, you could reset your Start screen back to default using the tutorial below to remove it, but you'll also have to manually pin anything you wanted back that's not default.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/18610-start-screen-reset-windows-8-a.html

Exactly what I needed, THANKS!

You're most welcome.