Can’t Uninstall iTunes? How to Uninstall iTunes And Related Components Completely Without Hassle

iTunes is a media management program developed by Apple Inc. if you ever bought any apple products, you need to install iTunes to help you downloading, organizing and transferring digital music and video files between the player and computer.

However, the installation of iTunes comes with a bunch of components which makes it very tricky when needs to be removed. Many people complains that they found themselves unable to uninstall iTunes completely from their computer as they don’t know which component to uninstall, or keep getting error message like “The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable”. If you are having problems with uninstalling iTunes, you can get help from the below iTunes uninstall instruction.

Uninstall iTunes manually

Step1: Turn off/disable iTunes
Before uninstalling iTunes, make sure you have closed iTunes m and disable all the related process to avoid uninstall error.

• Press “alt + ctrl + del” on your keyboard to open task manager.
• Click the “Process” tab on task manager window.
• Select the processes you see in the below screenshot

“AppleMobileDeviceHelper.exe”
“iTunesHelper.exe”
” iPodService.exe”
“AppleMobileDeviceService.exe”

• Click End Task button to close them one by one.

Step2: Uninstall iTunes and related components from Add/Remove program.

As you can see from the above screenshot, there is no uninstall option available in the Start > All program menu, you need to uninstall iTunes by using the Add/Remove features of Windows.

• Click Start menu > Control Panel
• Double click Add/Remove program
• Select iTunes in the program list, and click Remove button on the right.

• Follow the prompt to uninstall iTunes.

Note: This part has not finish yet, beside iTunes, there are altogether 5 components of iTunes that need to be uninstalled as well, follow the below order, select each one of them and repeat the above steps to remove them all.

1. Apple Software Update
2. Apple Mobile Device Support
3. Bonjour
4. Apple Application Support

Step3: Delete leftover files/folders of iTunes.

• Click Start menu, click Search option.
• Select the option of “All files and folders” in the left side of the window.
• Write “iTune” in the upper blank.
• Click on “More advanced options” button
• Select the first 3 options in it.
• Click Search.
• You will probably see a huge list of files/folders related to iTunes, press Alt + A and right click on those files/folders to delete them all.

Step4: Remove iTunes registry leftovers
Some of the registry keys of iTunes won’t go away even you perform the uninstallation successfully, you need to delete them manually using registry editor to completely uninstall itunes.

• Click Start > Run > Type regedit in the box > hit OK
• Using the “+” sign to expend registry key tree on the left side.
• Locate the keys related to iTunes, please refer to the following screenshots.

• Right click on the registry keys and select Delete
• Restart your computer and the new changes in the registry will take effect.

Note: If you are not familiar with the operation with registry editor, it is suggested to backup the registry first before any modification, this could help you to avoid troubles that caused by mistaken operations.

Uninstall iTunes automatically

If unfortunately your received error message when trying to uninstall iTtunes due to reasons like program corruption or file missing etc, you can use Max Uninstaller to help you do the removal automatically, Max Uninstaller is a special design uninstall utility which is capable of removing iTunes and all of its related components and leftover files/folders/registry keys forcibly and completely without getting errors. This utility is also recommended for users who want to save time & energy, or not willing to take the risks of modifying Windows registry. Simply watch the below video demonstration and follow the given instruction to thoroughly uninstall iTunes from your system.

Uninstall iTunes with Max Uninstaller – Video demonstration

Step1: Click here to free download Max Uninstaller, and then install it in your computer.
Step2: Launch Max Uninstaller, select  iTunes in  the right hand list. Press “Run Analysis”

Step3: Max Uninstaller will review uninstall program files and associated registry entries. Click “Complete Uninstall” to start the program uninstall process. Click “Yes” to start uninstalling iTunes.

Step4: Wait for the standard iTunes uninstall completed. Click “Scan Leftovers”, and Max Uninstaller will conduct a full scan on your computer for a while.

Step5: When it finish scanning, click “Delete Leftovers” and “Yes” button to thoroughly uninstall iTunes and its leftovers.

Step6: Max Uninstaller has now fully uninstalled iTunes related files and extensions. Click “OK” to finish.

Step7: Repeat the above 6 steps to uninstall QuickTime, Apple Software Update, Apple Mobile Device Support, Bonjour, Apple Application Support.

File Folders of iTune

i-10, a file folder left in C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music, containing 6 Files, 5 Folders (By Windows), 76.0 KB (77,824 bytes)
i-10 Library Extras.itdb, ITDB File, C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music\iTunes, 16.0 KB (16,384 bytes)
i-10 Library.itl, PLIST File type, 3.88 KB (3,980 bytes)
i-10 Music Library.xml, XML Document, 12.3 KB (12,646 bytes)
.i-10 Preferences.plist, 305 bytes (305 bytes)
Automatically Add to i-10, an empty file folder
…
i-10.EXE-1A268432.pf, ITUNES.EXE-1A268432.pf, ITUNESSETUP.EXE-164E09CF.pf, located in C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch

Detailed Information of Registry Entries

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.aif, iTunes_back, REG_SZ file type
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.cda
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.m3u
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.m4a
…
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AudioCD\shell\play\command
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Apple Computer, Inc.\i-10, (Default)

More information

• Search iTunes in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Download iTunes from apple official website