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.
asked Mar 8, 2010 at 18:24
2 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.
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 ...
rm. For Windows trydel. Stuff like using magnets or needles directly on the disk is less reliable.