Remove all traces of iTunes MANUALLY without removing all my drivers...

Question

Level 1

8 points

Remove all traces of iTunes MANUALLY without removing all my drivers...

<BackgroundInfo>I installed a QuickTime plugin for Internet Exploder, which downloaded QT, which downloaded the updater, which downloaded Safari, which downloaded iTunes, which came with all kinds of iPod junk, which downloaded MoMe Control Panel, which downloaded Bonjour. I barely even wanted the QT ActiveX... BTW, I have two identical 250GB drives, one master, one slave. I clone the master to the slave every week as a backup. My Documents, My Documents's special subfolders, and %windir% (as well as %programfiles%) are all on separate partitions, so I can clone C: back without affecting My Docs & its special subfolders...</BackgroundInfo>

I am right at home with regedit and CMD, and I'm not afraid to break out hex editors if I need to. Since iTunes and all the other iSoftware auto-installed without bothering to ask me if I wanted <insert app here> installed with the <insert other app here> update. I don't know when most of the iSoftware got installed, but it's all there now. Everything but iTunes uninstalls fine. If I try to do anything with iTunes (since Apple won't allow you to config anything), it takes my CD drivers (and a few USB ports) with it. My hardware is too old to find drivers for my CD drive other than the CD, which is pretty much useless. I cloned last week's copy of C: back, tried again, and iTunes killed my CD drivers again. So I'm sitting at how my computer was last week for a third time.

So, how do I MANUALLY remove all traces of iTunes and all the Apple Software without FUBARing the rest of my system? I mean with regedit, not with some (un)install tool. I can always waste another hour going back to exactly the same spot to try again...

I've posted the original thread here: http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?p=1738484&posted=1#post1738484

Message was edited by: palmgeek5394

Dell Dimension 2400 (old), Windows XP, Almost every part of my machine has been upgraded to the mobo's limit...

Posted on Jan 18, 2009 2:12 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Andrew T.

Level 4

3,219 points

Jan 18, 2009 6:22 PM in response to palmgeek5394

Hello, Welcome to Discussions.

There is no manual way to do it without it having something else not remove properly.

You will want to use the Add/Remove Programs and uninstall all Apple Software. List below of what is typically installed but may not be exactly what you have. Also a link on how to find all of our hidden files and folders. You can see weather or not this is something that would be along the lines of how you want to remove Apple software without affecting drivers.

Uninstall the following Apple Software in the following order to help reduce reboots

-Apple Mobile Device Support
-Apple Software Update
-Bonjour
-Windows iPod Updater (Name might be different but look for anything with the word iPod)
-MobileME Control Panel
-Quicktime
-iTunes

*Now reboot the computer

Removing iTunes, QuickTime, and other software components for Windows XP
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1925

Trouble installing iTunes or QuickTime for Windows
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1926?viewlocale=en_US

Update:

*Bonjour and Quicktime and Apple Mobile Device Support are a requirement to properly run iTunes and allow iPhone and iPod Touch to show up in iTunes.

Message was edited by: Andrew T.

Message was edited by: Andrew T.

Reply

Answer 2

palmgeek5394 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 18, 2009 5:51 PM in response to palmgeek5394

Okay...
Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel removes the CD drivers
WinUtilities removes the CD drivers
Revo Uninstaller removes the CD drivers
I can't find all the registry keys and I can no longer boot because something keeps referencing iTunes
Last of all, I refuse to leave iTunes on my computer because it won't leave me alone and bugs out constantly.

Does anyone know how to completely remove iTunes manually? Or does anyone have an email or something?

(And why can't I edit my post?)

Reply

Answer 3

palmgeek5394 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 19, 2009 11:25 AM in response to Andrew T.

< Thanks for the welcome... >
I don't have nor want any Apple hardware, so Bonjour and all the other stuff is long gone. It turns out that when iTunes auto-installed with QuickTime, it replaced my CD drivers (and maybe some other drivers I didn't try) with its own. I can't find my driver CD (Must be buried in a drawer somewhere), so iTunes is pretty much permanent. I couldn't find a copy elsewhere, and I really don't want to bother with Dell support ever again or reinstall Windows because I've done way too much to it and it's finally working the way I want it to, including the theme.

At least when I reinstalled iTunes I got to tell it to leave me alone and never update ever again. I deleted the updater to make sure of that.

I'm still trying to find non-iTunes drivers, so it's not technically resolved yet.

Reply

Answer 4

palmgeek5394 Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 13, 2009 7:55 PM in response to palmgeek5394

I was thinking of finally marking this answered, but iTunes isn't gone.

It looks like once iTunes is on your computer, it's there forever. I manually removed every trace of all the iWare, fixed what broke, and reinstalled it. Then I used the uninstaller to kill it. It worked then - there were well over a thousand corrupt registry entries I deleted - and the uninstaller left almost half of the nearly 3,562 (yes, I counted them with WinUtilities) registry entries and a ton of files scattered everywhere. Once I fixed what broke when I removed what the uninstaller didn't that I could see, it worked fine. Then everything started weirding out. The latest irritation is that FSX refuses to start, and what's broken refuses to install because, guess what? Something iTunes-related is missing. The only real removal instructions that don't leave a few hundred megs of crap that interferes with everything but can't be removed without causing problems is to just reformat (make sure you write over it five times) and install your OS of choice, possibly Ubuntu with XP in Sun's VM if you need anything not already ported to *nix.

Let's see if reinstalling the iStuff fixes anything. And if it does, if the uninstaller - acting as if it were a clean install since there's nothing left - works this time around.

Reply

Answer 5

palmgeek5394 Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 13, 2009 8:30 PM in response to palmgeek5394

Finally. It's gone, and everything I've tried works. Installing stuff works, etc. 😀

I'm just glad I backed up the iStuff keys to a file before I deleted them. Not all 3,562 of them, but anything in a Microsoft tree. There is this registry folder called UserAssist. I backed it up since I had no idea what it was or did. I go full-out on everything I do, so I tried searching for the ROT-13 forms of 'iTunes' and similar terms, and that's where the UserAssist folder showed up. I restored that, and now it works. If it shows up installed again, I'm calling an exorcist...

I'm gonna go play FSX now. 🙂

Reply