I was having a problem with Act's dropdown menus, and I finallly decided to address this by uninstalling and then reinstalling Act.2011. It turned out to be quite a difficult proposition, and this is to explain how I finally got the job done.
1. Uninstalling was a snap.
2. But the attempt to reinstall failed because the installer said it couldn't install the SQL server.
3. After repeated attempts, I uninstalled all files that seemed to support the 2008 SQL server.
4. I went to the Microsfot site specified in the Knowledgebase article and downloaded a copy of the server. It wouldn't install as it said there were files it couldn't find.
5. I then deleted all files in Program Files/Act and Program Files/Microsoft SQL (or whatever) It developed that the Act uninstall routine had left most of its files intact.
6. I then went used the free CCleaner program's registry function to clean up the Registry, which was littered with Act Keys.
7. I then downloaded a fresh version of the Act 2011 install files and executed the startup to unzip the files into a folder with the name c::/Act 7 install or similar. (It's automatic.) I didn't install Act juist yet.
8. Using the instructions in Knowledgebase article 26994, I reinstalled the SQL server Act 7 instance. It's a tricky install and the instructions must be followed exactly. It is important to use the SQLinstall routine in the newley recreated files as discussed in the artilce.
9. Finally, I was then able to install Act.
10. I updated the database to Hotfix 4. (It was not necessary to install SP1, as the downloaded install program was already updated.)
10. However, I still couldn't sychronize the database with remote databases. To solve that problem, I had to detach the database as described in Knowledgebace article 25099.
BTW, this did solve the dropdown menu problem.
QED
