Computer questions, please help!

Can anyone tell me how to completely remove the Windows Media Player from my computer? The player itself is all corrupted and I would like to reinstall just the player and nothing else. When I try to do an uninstall it just reverts the current player to an earlier version, and it wont allow me to erase all the Windows Media files because it says the files are in use, which they aren't. Does that make any sense?

Also, is it possible to have two media players open at the same time? I would like one to be playing music, and the other to be omitting random jungle sounds. If anyone has any suggestions on a better way to do that I'm all ears.

Mahalo ahead of time!

I think it tells you the files are in use, because of the way Windows makes a web of all it's programs. Even with the program shut down, there can be file indexing running which technically makes the file "in use", or something like that. Sometimes you won't be able to safely disconnect a flash drive for the same reason. You might be able to manually end processes using the task manager, but that can be risky if you shut the wrong stuff down. I wouldn't recommend that unless you know a lot about computers. If you do, don't be offended, it's just that I don't know you that well.
I'm not sure what you can do about uninstalling it, though. Have you tried just downloading and re-installing on top of your current install?
After you unintall, and the player reverts back to an old version, what happens if you try to install/upgrade the new version?
By the way, what version are you running? And what version of Windows?

I recommend getting a free version of Winamp. Then that can be playing your jungle sounds and Media Player can do its thing at the same time.

http://www.winamp.com/player/

If you go to the Add/Remove programs in the control panel and do the uninstall that way, it ought to ask if you want to Repair. That's what you want to do. If it's not the latest version, simply updating may fix it.

You can run to players at once, depending. Sometimes they will not share the sound. Sometimes they will. Mine will, no problem.

I also recommend Winamp. WMP just makes things way too confusing when you try to do something simple like make and play a playlist. It wants to search your whole computer and get it's grubby paws on everything, when all you wanna do is play some tunes. There is also a free plug-in that let's you manage your iPod through Winapm that is the only way to go on a Windows machine. iTunes on Windows is worse than a virus!

Thanks for responding guys. I have WMP 9 that I updated to 10. I have a Dell computer running Windows XP.

I guess I should explain further and maybe you can help:

I've been experiencing some minor issues with the media player, like music just stopping, or sometimes the whole computer freezing up. More recently I've noticed it in other programs I'm running. I don't know if they're related or not. While I was nosing around I found something unusual. If you click on the "File" menu in the upper-left hand corner of the media player, there is a list of files (just above the "exit" option) in locations that don't exist. If you click on them to play them, WMP will tell you it cannot access them because they have been moved. When I look for them manually, I find that there is nothing there to delete. What's worse, I can't even remove the list from the "Files" menu. I don't know if this is causing my problems or not, but I know I don't like it.

When I try to remove the program, it just reverts it to version 9. When I update it again, the bad files are still there.

Any thoughts?

WMP wants to know where every music file on your computer is. Try going to File->Add to Library->By searching computer. This will take a while. Tell it to just look in certain directories or whatever you want. If you search the whole computer, you end up with random sound files you don't want. It may take a while. But that might fix it.

The mystery files I might guess are temporary internet files that you played when you clicked a link or something. Them not being there now would be normal. They'd be in a directory with a funky name like OAI2M4 or something.

As for locking up, I would suggest you make sure you have good virus protection. If you don't have anti-virus, or the "trial period" you got from Dell with Norton has run out, first, remove Norton. Second, download Avast (www.avast.com) for your home. It's the best out there, and it's free for home use. Install, scan and see if you are infected. Win XP is very stable. Lock ups are often a sign of infection. Have you gotten any emails that said you sent an infected file?

Thanks Swanky, I will try that. Is there any way to just remove the names of the files off my File menu? You can't right-click on them or anything. I tried moving the cursor over the files and pressing Delete, but that didn't work either.

All you can do is open other files from WMP to play to replace those on the menu and they will disappear.

On 2005-09-17 17:02, finkdaddy wrote:
Thanks Swanky, I will try that. Is there any way to just remove the names of the files off my File menu? You can't right-click on them or anything. I tried moving the cursor over the files and pressing Delete, but that didn't work either.

I think you can set it to not keep recent files stored on the File menu. Go into the Tools menu, and select Options. Click on the Privacy tab. Uncheck the box that says "Save file and URL history in the player." By leaving that unchecked there will be no recent file list saved.

Thanks TikiJosh, that worked!

Hey Swanky, does Avast work well? I have McAfee, but I really don't want to pay the gazillion dollars it will cost to renew everything. I guess either way I will remove the McAfee and try it. What's to loose. :)