Can't Remove Faulty Codecs in XP - Help!

[jeffgmh]

Hi, I'm new to the forum.

Sorry to make my debut by whining for help, but here goes:

I'm running a computer with XP, and I noticed a lot of my mpeg video files weren't playing properly. The timer was innacurate, listing a 26 min video as being less than 3 min, and depending on where i put the slider in windows media player the video would skip to random parts of the 26 minutes or stop entirely.

I know the problem's not the videos, as they played fine on another computer with a fresh install of XP. And the problems not just the media player, because on this one computer all applications capable of playing the files encounter the same problems.

So i figure it's gotta be a faulty codec. At one time or another i probably accidentaly installed some crappy codec that messes some files up. So what i wanted to do was to remove the problem codecs and reinstall working video codecs.

Problem is, i can't seem to be able to remove any of my video codecs. I was able to access the video codec properties through device manager, and found a list of all the codecs. underneath the list of codecs was a button labeled "remove". Seemed easy enuff. When i selected a codec and pressed remove a warning would come up saying "This [codec name] driver is required by the system. If you remove it your system may not work properly. Are you sure you want to remove it?" And I would select "OK". The codec would then dissappear from the list. Seemed like i was on the right track. After removing some codecs I would press "OK" in order to (supposedly) make the changes permanent.

The Problem's that the changes wouldnt stick. The codecs werent uninstalled. If i went back to the video codecs properties menu, all the codecs i just supposedly removed are right back there on the list. I tried restarting windows after "removing" them to make them stay gone, but no luck.

I also know that these aren't all simply default unremovable codecs that come with windows, because they include such codecs as "DivX "

Anyone have any suggestions, useful questions, similar problems, or anything useful to contribute?

I'd greatly appreciate any help

Thanks a lot for reading my long winded question/problem.

[Laddydaddy]

Try start>control panel>add or remove programs. Choose the codecs you want to get rid of and uninstall them.

[jeffgmh]

I tried that after reading that advice on some sight or another i googled. Unfortunately the advice is directed to those using Win 98. XP codecs don't seem to appear in the add/remove programs dialog, or at least not any of my codecs.

Thanks for trying to help tho.

Please if anyone has had this problem and solved it, or has xp and knows how to succesfully remove unwanted codecs, i would greatly appreciate your input.

Thanks,
- Jeff

[bunyip]

According to the MSDN documentation your first approach was on the right track but you may need to be booted in 'SAFE MODE' for it to work.

Try that and let us know if its works.

[David K]

I'm running XP and have had the same problem.

The only way I've found is that you have to track down the location of the codec file (usually they end with an .ax extension) in a system file and delete it the old fashioned way. Gspot and several other programs will identify and give you the location of the codecs on your system. If it is an mpeg codec we're talking about it is a directX filter. Other codecs, especially DivX, can be in the form of VFW (Video for Windows) and those seem to be the one that have install and uninstall functions. But the DirectX filters never seem to have that, so you have to indentify them and track them down and delete them this way.

Even if you delete the file, then you can have problems because there may still be a registry entry about the codec that can screw things up. Then you have to remove the registry entries. I've used a shareware program called Registry First Aid that is pretty good for this. But this should not be undertaken lightly. Read up on how to use such a program and always make a system restore back up.

To learn alot about which filters are being used by your system, download Media Player Classic (latest version). It will not install any new codecs, it simply uses the ones that you already have. It shows you which directX filters are being used by your system to read a given media file, and allows you to block whatever codecs/filters you want. This way you can identify the problem ones, and then embark on the task of eliminating them.

Some programmer who figures out an easy program to add and remove DirectX filters could make a fortune (or at least gain the gratitude of the encoder community.)

[depressd]

This doesn't work. When trying to access these in safe mode. It's saying it can not access these.

Next..

[AndThenSome]

Have you tried to use the system restore. Maybe go back to a date before you installed any codecs.

System restore has saved me from hours of troubleshooting but the only downside is you will have to reinstall or update any software you put on your machine after the date you choose to restore to.

[depressd]

This seems to work removing codecs in xp. I found it in another thread on this forum.

http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/audio/dxman.htm