Uninstall VLC media player with WindowsUninstaller.Org Removal Tips
At just one point or another, this happens to every computer user in the world: You install VLC media player, find out you don't like it, or need the idea, or that its plain useless with the task you wanted to use it for and you intend to uninstall VLC media player. So you open up the Windows Add/Remove tool, click on the button to uninstall VLC media player... and pay attention to that you cannot uninstall the program. In this article I will endeavor to explain how to power uninstall VLC media player, that you cannot uninstall while using the Windows Add/Remove tool. Before that will, however, I will try to spellout what happens during installation.
What you need to know to uninstall a program manually There are several things that happen during installing a program. Very first, of course, is the copying of files to the specified program folder (which is normally somewhere inside the Program Files folder). Also some files such as shared libraries (. dll files) is usually copied into a folder inside Program Files called Common Files and many files such as drivers or shared libraries (again) are copied into the ' WINDOWS\System32' and ' WINDOWS\System32\drivers' folders.
After that the installer makes some changes within the windows registry. The windows registry can be a unified place where all this settings for programs and regarding windows itself are stored. The installer can make changes inside the registry for a lot of reasons. For example if a shared library must be registered. Or if certain types of files ought to be associated with the program staying installed, so that the end user could open them (e. h. if you install Microsoft Expression, then you will be capable to open Microsoft Word documents). Next is done, a key is added to the windows registry in a spot where the Windows Add/Remove tool searches for installed programs. During the installation each one of these operations are logged in a particular file (e. g. setup. log), and the installation program typically puts that file inside the application's folder combined with uninstaller. When a user tries to take out VLC media player through the Add/Remove tool, windows looks for the registered uninstaller within the registry, and executes it. The uninstaller goes thru the log file and undoes each of the changes done during installation. That may be, it deletes all the files that were copied, all the registry important factors the installer created etc. Even so, if there is no firewood file, or if there isn't any record of the changes designed to the registry the uninstaller might are not able to uninstall VLC media player, and it will continue to be there untill it is eliminated by other means. Therefore if VLC media player won't uninstall, tips on how to perform a force uninstall? Nicely, if you know how to cooperate with the windows registry, you probably are able to do a manual force uninstall. Before I go into detail about how to make this happen manually, I'd like to say until this is pretty advanced stuff, of course, if you're not a power end user, then perhaps you should consider using specialized software for example the uninstall tool which allows you to make this happen in just a few clicks. If you are a power user, then let's proceed. First, let's see how to take out the program from the set of installed programs. To do you'll want to open the registry browser:
Click Start and choose Run inside menu (If you're using Windows Vista then press Win+R on your keyboard).
Type regedit and also hit Enter.
On the left side would be the registry settings tree, use it to visit to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
Inside that key you'll find plenty of keys that belong to distinct programs. Some are named following program's name, others as combining numbers and letters that helps make no sense. Look through all of them until you find one which includes the key DisplayName (on the right) together with your program's name in it.
Notice the real key UninstallString - this key points to the uninstall program, and the log file usually resides inside same folder as that program.
If you delete the real key in which you've found the DisplayName key using the value equal to your program's title, then your program won't appear within the Add/Remove programs list.
Some programs create new entries inside registry to store their configuration options, these entries can usually be found in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software or in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE - hunt for the program name or the name of the company that made the software package. Don't delete Microsoft though - which contains Windows settings as well.