How to best uninstall Codecs manually (via tools)?

I'm looking for a tool, which should be fairly up-to-date and maintained, which uninstalls individual Codecs from the pc. A bonus would be if the tool were to scan my pc for existing codec.

Anyone know anything?

Platform: Win 7.

Grumpy ol' Bear

Posted 2010-03-08T18:24:03.310

Reputation: 5 313

This depends on your platform, but the best tool to remove stuff manually under Linux or OS X is rm. For Windows try del. Stuff like using magnets or needles directly on the disk is less reliable. – Benjamin Bannier – 2010-03-08T19:37:00.650

May I ask what the purpose of this would be? – Ivo Flipse – 2010-03-08T19:51:20.127

I'm not asking for a tool to remove 'stuff', but specifically CODECS.

The purpose: To clean out the PC from codecs leftovers? – Grumpy ol' Bear – 2010-03-08T20:11:06.380

Answers

Under Windows you can view and unregister DirectShow filters using GSpot. Once downloaded, go to the System menu then List Codec and other Filters. This will give you a list of codecs. Any codec that can be unregistered will give you the option the context menu.

heavyd

Posted 2010-03-08T18:24:03.310

Reputation: 54 755

Windows 7 codecs (variously also called filters or decoders) are in Windows Media Player nomenclature called "directshow filters". Directshow filters have "ax" file extensions, coming from "ActiveX" controls. Once you locate the codec you want to get rid of, you can remove it with the command line command "regsvr32.exe ". regsvr32 is the generic tool to register/deregister OLE controls (typically DLL and AX services) in the window register.

(Note that on 64-bit systems there are two versions: the 64-bit version is %systemroot%\System32\regsvr32.exe and the 32-bit version is %systemroot%\SysWoW64\regsvr32.exe)

There are various tools for managing these filters; i haven't used them, and i don't know of any that are very recent, so can't recommend (search for "directshow filter manager" and you'll find several). You may very well need one of these tools to sort out "codec hell" with the merit weapons race ...

Peter S Magnusson

Posted 2010-03-08T18:24:03.310

Reputation: 553