While I was out, an Apple iTunes update failed to work properly and created interesting errors at boot. They weren’t critical, but I couldn’t fix the issue simply but just re-running Apple Software Update.
It was a bear to get Apple’s software to uninstall. If you’re an older iTunes user, it is likely that you’re like me and haven’t been following the proper software path either.
My program-uninstall steps:
- iTunes
- Apple Software Update
- Bonjour
- Apple Application Support
- Quicktime
- Safari
- MobileMe Control Panel
- iCloud
- iPhone Configuration Utility
However, Apple Mobile Device support would not uninstall – even though all other Apple software had been uninstalled. Rebooted my machine, and used my favorite cleaner to dump temp files and fix over 200 registry issues left behind by the Apple uninstalls.
Apple Mobile Device Support still wouldn’t uninstall, but after another reboot I stopped the Bounjour service (which was still running) and then it did uninstall.
What is strange is that Bounjour wouldn’t remove as a service, even though it was uninstalled in the steps above and didn’t appear in the control panel. So I removed the service using these two commands from RUN:
“%PROGRAMFILES%\Bonjour\mDNSResponder.exe” -remove
regsvr32 /u “%PROGRAMFILES%\Bonjour\mdnsNSP.dll”
They ran successfully, Bounjour wasn’t in the list of Services any longer.
The Bounjour files however were being used by other programs. If this happens to you, try deleting the individual files instead of the directory and you’ll see a better error message. I decided to leave it alone.
This was a helpful reference.
Even though it was a liberating experience, iTunes is going to be re-installed for now.
