Win Media Player (wmplayer.exe) will not open, and I cannot uninstall it

[Guest]

Windows Explorer shows wmplayer.exe to be 63KB, 10/18/2006. It will not
open. Starting setup_wm.exe results in a message that I must close Win Media
Player, but of course it is not actually open. Ignoring the warning, I hit
"Next" to go on to download some update components, and get the message that
I have the latest version; WMP11. Thinking that there are some registry or
other kinds of settings that indicate that I have the latest version, I go
to Control Panel to remove WMP11. The listing tells me that the size is
8.00MB. I hit "remove" and get the message that I must "close Windows Media
Player before continuing with rollback." It is not really open, of course.

So I am stuck with a nonworking WMP. Cannot open it, cannot remove it,
cannot update it. I know better than simply to delete the visible WMP files,
as this leaves registry values unchanged, and could leave me in a spot where
the correct fix would be more difficult.

I presume that my WMP 11 has been corrupted. How do I proceed from here?

 

[kenkcj]

Go to task manager by hitting CTRL+ALT+DEL, Click on the processes tab and
sort by image name. Make sure that there is not a process open by
wmplayer.exe, and if there is, click on it and end process. This should
clear wmplayer from memory to allow you to uninstall and then try with a
fresh install. Best of luck.
-kenkcj

 

[Guest]

Thank you. I was thinking of wmplayer.exe as an APPLICATION, so I would not
not have thought of it as a process. There was no icon in the bottom right
corner of the screen. I did stop the wmplayer.exe as listed in Processes,
then ran setup_wm.exe. As before, it told me that I had the latest version
(11). But now, presumably/possibly as a result of running setup_wm.exe, I
can now open WMPlayer. I did not have to uninstall and reinstall Win Media
Player.

Let this be a lesson to me that if it happens that if I am told that
something is running, look for it under the Processes tab.