Blank(!) lines in my PC's Add/Remove Programs list. Is this normal/harmless?

Factual Questions
1

I went to remove an application from my PC. When I opened the Add/Remove Programs Properties window, which displays a the list of all my computer’s currently installed applications, I noticed something odd. There was a significant amount of blank space above the first application name on the list. When I clicked on the empty space, the blank lines where I clicked would highlight and the Add/Remove button would become usable. It was exactly as if I had selected one of the visible application names from the list, except each selected line remained utterly blank despite by best efforts to trick the computer to tell me what was there. I counted the blank lines – there are nearly thirty of them.

What’s going on here? Is this normal? When I’ve used the Add/Remove feature in the past I don’t remember there being any of these phantom lines, especially nearly thirty of them. Are there some secret and evil programs installed on my PC that I should be worried about? Please advise.

Thanks all, in advance.

(FWIW, I’m running Windows 98SE. Yeah, I know, it’s time for an upgrade. One of these days, one of these days…)

2

This happens from time to time in Windows XP. First time I have heard of it in Win98. As far as the XP machines go, it has never been a problem. If nothing else is wrong, I would not worry about it.

As part of my job I maintain about 100 PCs and then another 10-20 at home and for friends and family.

Jim

3

You can remove invalid entries using TweakUI:

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/tweakui

Or you can manually edit it from the registry:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310750