Unable to uninstall Nightly 15.0a1 even with helper.exe

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John_Ha
Posts: 111
Joined: August 22nd, 2008, 2:56 am

Unable to uninstall Nightly 15.0a1 even with helper.exe

Post by John_Ha »

I cannot uninstall Nightly 15.0a1 (x64 en-US) from Windows 7 64 bit Home. I close all other applications and try:
1. Control Panel > Programs and features > r-click Nightly. Uninstall is offered but when I click it, nothing happens
2. When I click on C:\Users\Program files\Nightly\helper.exe, nothing happens. Running as administrator makes no difference
I have been running both Nightly and Firefox 12.0 and I have been having some strange effects in Firefox. I want to remove Nightly to see if my Firefox problems are fixed, but I cannot remove it.
Nightly sucessfully updated itself today. FF is my default browser.
bjherbison
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Location: Bolton, MA, US
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Re: Unable to uninstall Nightly 15.0a1 even with helper.exe

Post by bjherbison »

I don't know why uninstall wouldn't work, but have you done a disk check?

Nightly shouldn't affect Firefox at all if you just don't start Nightly.

If you have been using the same profile for Firefox 12 and Nightly, try creating a new profile for Firefox 12 and check whether that fixes the behavior.
John_Ha
Posts: 111
Joined: August 22nd, 2008, 2:56 am

Re: Unable to uninstall Nightly 15.0a1 even with helper.exe

Post by John_Ha »

Thank you.
I did a chkdsk /f and it found no problems. I then created a new profile for Firefox. But I still cannot uninstall Nightly.
I then un-installed Firefox (I have a backup of my profile, settings etc) and I still cannot uninstall Nightly, not even with helper.exe.
I then ran Glary Utilities Uninstall Manager but it did not list Nightly as an installed program. W7 at least lists Nightly as a program, even though it will not uninstall it.
Is there a different version of helper.exe I could download?
Or can I uninstall and remove it manually? If I did it manually, I would delete all the files and use regedit to search for all instances of Nightly in the Registry and delete them. But I would not do that lightly - editing the registry is a recipe for disaster.
I cannot go back to an earlier Restore Point because I don't have one before Nightly was installed.
Nightly shares the same profile as Firefox.
pal-moz
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Joined: September 23rd, 2005, 5:40 pm
Location: Tokyo , Japan

Re: Unable to uninstall Nightly 15.0a1 even with helper.exe

Post by pal-moz »

Can you re-install NIGHTLY ?
if you can, try to un-install after re-install.
[Desktop] Windows 7 Professional (32bit/SP1) / Geforce GTX 660Ti 2GB (350.12) / 4GB RAM
TheVisitor
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Joined: May 13th, 2012, 10:43 am

Re: Unable to uninstall Nightly 15.0a1 even with helper.exe

Post by TheVisitor »

At the risk of being redundant have you restarted your system ?
John_Ha
Posts: 111
Joined: August 22nd, 2008, 2:56 am

Re: Unable to uninstall Nightly 15.0a1 even with helper.exe

Post by John_Ha »

Thanks for all the help - I am quite bemused!
Restarting - I have rebooted several times.
I re-installed Nightly, but I then had two versions. The problem version is (x64 en-US) - a 64 bit version. The one which installed was - I forget exactly - but it had x86 so I guess was the 32 bit version. It uninstalled fine but Control Panel still shows Nightly x64 is there, and so are all of its files in ...\Program Files\Nightly.
During the uninstall it said something about stopping Firefox?Nightly? as the profile was in use. But I have never seen a nightly.exe or FF.exe in System Manager when it shouldn't be there.
Now I have no desktop icon nor Start Menu item for Nightly. When I click a link in my email, my (never used!) IE is activated - I am using it now.
So, my thoughts are
1 I will try and install/uninstall the 64 bit version and see if that uninstalls everything
2 I wonder if it is one of those problems where Windows marks a file as being in use and therefore prevents the uninstall.
Last edited by John_Ha on May 15th, 2012, 5:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
John_Ha
Posts: 111
Joined: August 22nd, 2008, 2:56 am

Re: Unable to uninstall Nightly 15.0a1 even with helper.exe

Post by John_Ha »

SUCCESS!
pal-moz - it was your idea which fixed it. I found the 64 bit version and downloaded it and installed it and un-installed it and it went!
I had meanwhile wondered if one of the other users on the PC (I have test Guest and ANOther users) might have been logged on with Nightly running, but they weren't - and I deleted the users just in case.
Many thanks for all your help.
... and now I can start to look at the real problem I have which is my bookmarks are not syncing properly with X-Marks and where I thought that Nightly might be a cause of the problem, so I should uninstall it ...
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