Uninstall an unwanted application - GOM Media Player

[Carson Dyle]

Last week I made the mistake of installing GOM Media Player. Was trying to view a streamed sporting event, and the software seemed legit enough at the time. Should have done a little more research.

I was careful not to install any of the added software that came with the installer, but the application itself doesn't play very nice. First, it re-assigned all video and audio media file extensions to itself. And it changed the default search engine in all browsers.

Both of those issues were easily fixed. Minor inconvenience.

But...

The program's uninstaller does nothing. It brings up a language preference box (which itself appears to do nothing), then closes. Doesn't touch the application.

I can just delete the application's installation directory and can probably track down its data and even registry cruft, but I'm not sure what that will leave behind. Is there a good way to deal with a Windows program that doesn't have an uninstaller?

 

[nerp]

There are tools to help but they typically need to be running when you install since they generate a log of every single thing the installer does. That's the only way it can fully reverse the process. You can try running CCleaner, Malwarebytes and other scanners. Deleting every reference in the registry. . . etc.

But you will never feel confident unless you do a full reinstall of the OS. Unfortunate.

 

[balloonshark]

Does uninstall show up in the start menu folder? http://player.gomlab.com/guide.gom?tab=12&language=eng

If you have ccleaner can you uninstall it that way?

Normally if I have trouble uninstalling I try reinstalling again and see if it fixes the uninstaller. In your case that may be a pain with dodging the add-ons and the unwanted changes the program makes.

 

[lupi]

I use GOM but never came across these issues.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I use GOM but never came across these issues.

Have you tried the uninstaller? If yours works, maybe you could send me a copy. Worth a try, anyway.

 

[balloonshark]

Try installing it again and see if it fixes the uninstaller. I've had broken uninstallers fixed by reinstalling the program.

 

[Carson Dyle]

It turns out that the version I installed had a completely fubar installer. I took a chance and installed an updated release and the working installer this time gave me options of grabbing media file associations and switching browser search engines to Bing. Those weren't offered with the previous installer.

And the uninstaller works. It's been uninstalled and I'll never look at it again.