attempted erasures twarted by "access denied"

A

arring10

New Member
Windows media player works poorly or not at all on my Windows 7 laptop.Went to erase it and found two separate versions; one under 'Programs' another under 'Programs*86'. Neither will erase: "access is denied". I am on as an administrator, there are no other user accts. on this computer. Help! :(
 
Your account may have administrative rights, but, in Windows 7, you will not normally be running as administrator.

I can't think why you would wish to erase the Windows Media player installation; repairing the installation (which is, pretty much, part of your Windows setup) would seem to be a better option. I therefore hesitate to advise you, as the advice could turn out to be very unhelpful. Please could you describe in detail what you are trying to do.

I am not sure, but I could readily believe that the WMP installation contains files that users are just not permitted to access; no application (including Eraser) can touch these.

David
 
The WMP program I have is apparently incomplete and not the latest version;(although this computer is only 6 mos. old), and there are two versions on this machine. The program will not open unless I load a new CD and sometimes not even then; nor will it play a DVD. I am reluctant to load a new version and have 3 poorly functioning versions on my box.
 
In those circumstances, I am afraid Eraser will not help you. You will need to find a forum which will advise you how to uninstall WMP and remove all traces of the defective installations, then reinstall WMP from scratch. My guess is that the original installation was defective, and the problems have carried on into the subsequent installations.

David
 
Even if you run Eraser as an administrator, the program files belong to TrustedInstaller which is of a slightly higher privilege level than that of Administrators, hence you will not be able to erase Windows Media Player. This seems to be a deliberate decision (on Microsoft's part) to prevent users from accidentally destroying their Windows installs, I guess.
 
arring10 said:
how do i rid myself of TrustedInstaller all together
Click to expand...
You don't, at least not without ridding yourself of Windows altogether. It's a Windows security feature. And, no, I don't understand why, either.

David
 
It's to prevent malware from modifying Windows internals, above what users can do to corrupt the OS.
 
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