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Need help removing itunes from XP

Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 5:17 pm
by KHPower
In another thread I wanted to reformat my XP pro system and this is half the reason why.

I tried uninstalling itunes and it tells me "invalid drive F:\" well I no longer have a drive labled F and I even tried installing a newer version and it still says the same as above. I then installed some more advanced uninstall programs and they sadly do not work.

How can I forcefully uninstall itunes so I can put a fresh copy onto my machine?

RE: Need help removing itunes from XP

Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 9:18 pm
by Jim
Other people may have better ways; but one way would be with a registry repair program like "Registry First Aid". It would identify all the unused, (No files connected to them), registry entries and you could use it to delete them. Kinda tedious though.

Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 8:18 am
by KHPower
I used a couple of registry cleaners and although I cleaned up some stuff i still have a problem with itunes.
When I try to install itunes it first tries to install in drive F(which I dont have) so I tried installing into C and still the problem persists.

I then changed the drive letter of a flash card to F and tried to install on thatand yet again , no luck.

I then get the error:
C:\windows\installer\itunes.msi

I am not sure :?

Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 8:35 am
by Jim
It sounds like something similar to what I have encountered in past. See post "Oddball problem" in software and tweaking section.

Unless you are really determined to have "I Tunes", this sounds like software you are better off without. The reason I say this, is I also have software that I like that causes very serious problems.

The software in question is an item from "Broderbund". Broderbund has the nasty habit of selling software that comes 3/4 disabled, and stays that way until you "register" it with them, at which time they give you a key to unlock the disabled features. Problem is some of their stuff stays sitting on the shelves in stores long after they have shut down their "Registration Programs". So you wind up stuck with software that doesn't work, until you hack it.

And therein lies the catch, and similarity to what you are going through. When you hack Broderbunds software to get it working, it works until for any reason you have to uninstall it; at which point it will no longer work when reinstalled. This is because Broderbund likes to stick something on the boot track of your HDD to indicate illegal usage; and the only way I have been able to get a reinstalled version working, is by LOW LEVEL FORMATTING my HDD, (to get rid of whatever crap they put there), and reinstalling my entire system.

It sounds like "I Tunes" is also sticking something on your boot track. The catch about LOW LEVEL FORMATTING is XP also sticks something on your boot track; and it checks for that something each time you go to activate XP. If that something is not there, MS counts it as a fresh install on a different machine, (illegal), and they only let you do that a few times before they cut off your activation privileges.

I have boot track utilities, which I downloaded, but I have not used them yet. That might be one way around this mess.

Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 5:23 pm
by KHPower
I finally got the itunes problem fixed. All I did was install Windows installer cleanup utility . Then I installed and I am good to go

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 6:49 pm
by Jim
Good, glad you got lucky like that.