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How To Uninstall Windows Media Player 12 on Windows 7?

by | Thursday, 12th Feb 2009 | 62 Comments | Share

By default has Windows Media Player 12 as the default media player, if you are not happy with the performance of the Media player, you can easily downgrade the Windows Media Player 12 to WMP 11.

wmp-12-now-playing-audio-list

Though the method is not straightforward and you will need to perform a hack uninstall of WMP 12. There are several steps you will need to follow to do this.

Step 1: Download Windows Media Player 11 Installer for Windows 7 (Update: January 31, 2012 – Link updated)

Step 2: Type services.msc in Windows 7 search bar and open the services application.

Step 3: Find the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service and Stop it.

Step 4: You will need to take Ownership of several files which include:

    1. All files in Program FilesWindows Media Player folder
    2. All files starting with wmp in System32 folder
    3. wmploc.dll.mui in Sytem32en-us folder

Step 5: Run the Windows Media Player 11 Installer you had downloaded earlier.

Step 6: Type Regedit in Windows 7 search bar and open the registry editor application.

Step 7: Delete following Registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftMediaPlayerSetupInstalled Versions

Step 8: Reboot your Windows 7 for the changes to take effect.

That’s it, with these steps you will be able to downgrade WMP 12 and use WMP 11 instead. Want to share any Windows 7 tips? Feel free to contact us with your tips.

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I am the editor-in-chief and owner of Techie Buzz. I love coding and have contributed to several open source projects in the past. You can know more about me and my projects by visiting my Personal Website.I am also a social networking enthusiast and can be found active on twitter, you can follow Keith on twitter @keithdsouza. You can click on my name to visit my Google+ profile.

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  1. CekÅŸ on February 14th, 2009 at 9:38 am #

    Dont work!

    Server Execution Failed error

    • Simon on April 9th, 2010 at 1:45 pm #

      I'm having this problem too, although everything else appears to be working with it

  2. Velik on February 17th, 2009 at 10:35 pm #

    Didnt work for me, but I did find that there is a procedure for setting up hidden beta features in windows 7 which allow a similar feature for wmp 12. Now my question is how do i get WMP 12 back : (

  3. Blake on February 24th, 2009 at 3:37 pm #

    Didn’t work for me either. it only crapped up the installation. as for a fix for this, i did a system restore to about a day before and now it works fine. i still wish i had wmp11 back tho because it was more stable for me.

  4. Blake on February 24th, 2009 at 3:40 pm #

    http://www.winmatrix.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=22459

    states that it only works for 32-bit system. this solves the puzzle for me as mine is 64-bit.

  5. DenyM on March 4th, 2009 at 10:07 am #

    Windows+R
    cmd
    chkdsk
    I think this command is restore windows media player 12…

  6. wart0g on July 3rd, 2009 at 1:26 pm #

    Side note: Oh, and by the way, this only works for 32-bit operating systems.
    Would’ve been nice to know before screwing up WMP 12.

  7. Jason Kingsbury on July 16th, 2009 at 2:07 pm #

    This is a good tutorial, however once I uninstalled wmp 12 I realised you cant go back – or I don’t know how. IF YOU ARE UNSURE WHETHER YOU WANT TO KEEP WMP 12 OR NOT DO NOT UNINSTALL. Now I have to wait until Wmp 12 is released to reinstall it.. :(

  8. Justin on August 15th, 2009 at 2:52 pm #

    Is it maybe possible to actually give directions for the title of the article…uninstalling something does not mean to downgrade it. A complete uninstall is more productive considering WMP is basically garbage to begin with

  9. Val on September 6th, 2009 at 12:25 pm #

    Hey guys! I discovered how to uninstall windows media player 12 from windows 7 without a scratch!!!

    1- Go to control Panel
    2- Choose programs and feature (not uninstall)
    3- CHoose Turn Windows Feature On or Off on the left of the screen
    4- Find Media Features
    5- Unmark Media Features then press Ok
    6- Simply restart, and reinstall media player 11 (or the one you’d like)

    (Sorry for my bad English, I’m usually speaking french :D)

    • Tony on September 14th, 2009 at 12:06 pm #

      This works fine on any version. Best recommendation.

    • GBo on November 29th, 2009 at 8:34 am #

      Brilliant!

    • Evaristo Estevez on December 12th, 2009 at 6:17 am #

      Thanks for your tip! Invaluable. I hope that I'll be able now to associate media files with SMPlayer, finally.

      (MS really go to great lengths to avoid competition. 1 hour of my weekend time. Multiply this by millions of users…)

    • victor gomez on October 16th, 2010 at 3:30 am #

      seria posible poner imagenes (español)
      You can upload images? (ingles)

    • georgia on March 20th, 2011 at 7:20 pm #

      Thanks so much Val!!! I owe you a big one.

      Merciiiii

  10. Persi on September 6th, 2009 at 7:22 pm #

    Even it didn’t worked for me. After step 4, while following the step 5 installing the Windows Media Player 11 Installer I got lot off error messages. I ignored all those and after that continued with 6,7,8. But at last the windows media player crashed

  11. André Almeida on September 13th, 2009 at 10:32 am #

    Between step 6 and 7, you can EXPORT the key, before the deletion, and in the future, you can restore the key too. This solves the problems of “windows media 12 crash”.

    Other way is to create a system restore point.

    I hope this helps you guys!

    Hugs

  12. John on December 22nd, 2009 at 4:01 pm #

    Also, thanks to the jackals at Microshaft, if you disable Windows Media Player, it also disables Media Center as Media Center is dependant on Media Player.

  13. Gerry on January 10th, 2010 at 3:52 am #

    Thanks. It works ! WMP 12 is total crap.

  14. Danny on January 11th, 2010 at 3:28 pm #

    Would it be possible to go even further back and 'downgrade' to WMP 10? It's much better than either 11 or 12. Cheers.

    • Kal on January 31st, 2010 at 8:05 pm #

      I totally agree that WMP 10 is by far the best while WMP 11 and 12 really suck.
      Unfortunately WMP 10 can be installed only on Win XP 32-bit.

  15. amit ranjan on January 15th, 2010 at 8:27 am #

    hey i m using window 7 n all my icons in my desktop starts with window media player ….how i can get rid of it ??
    plzzz reply quickly bcz i m facing lot's of prblm ……
    i m thnkful to u …..

  16. jelenam92 on February 1st, 2010 at 10:25 am #

    I am sorry for asking this, i know it is not a topic, but, still……..
    My now playing list doesn't look like this. It doesn't have the names of the songs i play. If i want to see all the songs from the list i have to go to the library. How do i change this? I didn't find it anywhere in the options.
    Thanks…….. and sorry……..

  17. zyg_b on February 7th, 2010 at 2:38 pm #

    "need to take Ownership" – what exactly do you mean by that ? Can you please explaine in a simpler languge ?

    • sammy on April 14th, 2010 at 11:05 am #

      just go to properties of the folder and then to security and then to advanced….but dont go with this trick its bogus man i am afraid u will lose ur WMP 12 bro

  18. mike on March 30th, 2010 at 2:37 pm #

    This is useless…no offence but you did not even explain how tyo "take onwership" of those files you mentions ..I don't kno what the heck that means and most people other than computer geeks probably don't

  19. Lucas on March 30th, 2010 at 5:46 pm #

    destroyed my windows, happy?

  20. sammy on April 14th, 2010 at 11:01 am #

    hahahahaaaaaaaaaa ……dear friends …like u i also lost my WMP 12 now i am using media centre of windows 7….frnds dont try this it doesn't work. Anyway thanks frends to teach me something …..

  21. Kayo on April 18th, 2010 at 5:21 am #

    I don't know what you guys did to screw this up, but i followed this into the smallest detail and it all works.
    the icon looks like the one of Wmp 12
    but its definetly 11.
    This tut was really helpfull.
    I suggest you guys take another look at this, you probably did something wrong.

  22. Dillion on April 29th, 2010 at 12:35 pm #

    thanks alot. now i cant get windows media player 12 back and i dont know what to do about it. if anyone could help PLEASE!

  23. freezingicekirby on May 17th, 2010 at 2:23 pm #

    I tried this, and for the longest time it worked. Then, accidentally I think Windows Update downloaded an update for WMP12 (or something), and ever since then the thing has been terribly screwed up… and redoing everything explained here didn't work (and I'm not sure what Update it was). It was also too late for me to do a System Restore, so that was out of the question.

    Now I'm stuck without any Windows Media Player… :(

  24. carlosgf on June 19th, 2010 at 9:47 am #

    Hi,

    I have seen this same instructions a bit for all over the net.

    To be honest, none of this steps allowed me to play wmp on win7.

    It still keeps telling me that it needs to be reinstall.

    Thank you

  25. John Larson on June 24th, 2010 at 5:44 pm #

    This is easy – WMP12 in Windows 7 Home Premium does not work at all – actually, nothing and I repeat absolutely nothing works at all in Windows 7 Media Player 12 – Aspect and sound are horrible and further more my suggestion to all and sundry is to JUMP SHP AND MOVE IMMEDIATELY OVER TO APPLE/MAC IMMEDIATELY – that system actually does work unlike MS Windows 7 Windows Media Player 12 – what a lemon this whole windows really is – it just goes to show how the so-called programmers at Microsoft respond to any type of criticisms – nothing doing, yeah, that's right keep it up!!

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