removing Windows Media Player 11?

todd_k

todd_k

New Member
my friend has a fairly new laptop and wants to remove Windows Media Player 11 since MLB.com only supports up to WMP 10. He tried downloading WMP 10 and it says he already has a newer version on his PC. He never had WMP 10 so he can't just go into the Control Panel and rollback to the previous version. I fear that just deleting the WMP folder out of the Program Files folder would not help either since there has been a registry key that would still point to WMP 11.

Any solutions for this?
 
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The first question to ask here would be what version of Windows is your friend running on his laptop? If VIsta the odds are against it. I'm still waiting for a chance to remove WMP 11 on a Vista installation here to see if #10 will even run. If he has XP on the unit the odds are is his favor there. You simply go into the add/remove Windows components section of the add/remove programs found in the control panel and uncheck the WMP box to see WMP totally removed first. Then with a fresh copy of #10 downloaded and saved on the drive run the installer to see if it goes on then.

XP Pro was a pain here when first evaluating the #11 beta and then deciding to stay with the WMP 10 version. Eventually a successful installation was seen when XP Pro had to be installed on a different drive since Vista wouldn't install to a second partition for dual booting the two versions. But remember the update notification for WMP will prompt on a regular basis for the update to WMP 11. This was one method that saw results.
 
Ack! Thanks for the info. He's using XP Media Center. I always forget about the add/remove Windows components section of the add/remove programs, I never look at those icons on the left. Thanks!
 
This is how it worked on the Home and Pro versions so that was the best idea to pass along there. Just remember the update notifications for WMP will be to upgrade to 11 again. Tell your friend about that coming up on occasion. When going to MS for updates use the "custom" not express method otherwise 11 will automatically download along with any others there. Let's see how it goes! ;)
 
it didn't work. he used the add/remove Windows components section of the add/remove programs, he said it successfully uninstalled. He rebooted and when he tried to install WMP 10, he got the same error saying that a newer version was already installed. I told him to check C:\program files and the Windows Media Player was still there.
 
its left a mark on his registry that the version has been installed.
make sure you uninstall the program correctly and if that doesnt work then delete the program files folder (last resort) and run a registry scan. depending on the scanner, if it sees a registry entry and no program installed, it will remove or quarantine it.

good luck
 
PC eye said:
Besides a registry cleaner like the free one seen at http://www.majorgeeks.com/RegCleaner_d460.html with an automatic cleaner you will also want to manually remove the remaining folders on the drive in the Program Files and "DocumentandSettings\user name\local settings\Apllication Data" directories.
Click to expand...

so I'm 300 miles away from him, if I get him to do all of this and then things start to go wrong, he can do a system restore and everything will be ok, right?
 
If for some reason WMP 10 still won't go on after a complete removal of 11 for some reason he can simply download another copy and 11 will go right back on fast. When making any major software change you can create a restore point by going to the Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>System Restore and choose the create restore point option right before the removal of 11. Here I had to remove all traces of 9 as well as 11 to get the 10 version to finally go onto the XP Pto installation here. It may take a few tries.

He probably won't have too much to worry about there. the 11 version is geared more towards Vista while still being the update for the previous versions. He may want to turn off the auto update setting to prevent 11 from suddenly being installed again. And remind him to use the custon not express option to uncheck 11 when going to Microsoft for other updates.
 
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