Cannot Uninstall Pinnacle Studio 14HD

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AliciasAsylum

AliciasAsylum

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Nov 4, 2013
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Simply, it won't leave. I have tried using the control panel. Tried Manually frying everything. Done a Registry Clean. The thing persists, it simply will NOT delete off my system - anyone know how to kill it?
 
Solution
H
Well, if I say to you that the way to solve your problem is to follow the advice as laid out in this thread then you could choose this reply as the solution.

And I am glad I could help. It was an interesting journey.

Now get some sleep and have a good day. Good morning.

:)
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You may have already tried this but if not then give it a shot.

"Section 2: Advanced Uninstall and Reinstall Steps

If the above steps fail, or you have the same problem in Studio after the uninstall and reinstall procedure, try the following steps:
1.Go to Start - Control Panel.
2.In Windows XP click on Add or Remove Programs. In Windows Vista or Windows 7 click on Programs - Uninstall a program.
3.Select Studio 14 or 15 and click the Remove button (Windows XP), or the Uninstall button (Windows Vista or Windows 7). Follow any on-screen instructions to remove the software.
4.Download and run Regdelete. In the Regdelete pull-down window select Studio 14 and then click the "Clean" button.
If you are having unlock/activation or serial number issues, run Regdelete (http://cdnexpress.pinnaclesys.com/SupportFiles/Regdelete/RegDelete_14.exe) a second time and specifically select "User activation and registration data" from the pull-down list, and then click the "Clean" button. This will clear activation and serial number information from the registry.Note: Only select User activation and registration data if you are having activation or serial number problems. Note: 2 we do not currently offer http://cdnexpress.pinnaclesys.com/SupportFiles/Regdelete/RegDelete_14.exe for 15.
5.Delete the Studio 14 or 15 folder. By default the location for this is C:\Program Files\Pinnacle\Studio 14. Note: This folder may or may not be present depending on what contents were installed.
6.Perform a Windows search for Pixie. If it finds a Pixie folder, make a copy of it, and then delete it."
Source: http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/faq/en288459

You could also try Revo Uninstaller - http://download.cnet.com/Revo-Uninstaller/3028-2096_4-10687648.html?c=SEM-SEO&s=fivemill&pid=dlcom_sem&aid=revo%20uninstaller-e&dlc=n&part=fivemill - and see if that helps.
 
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Thanks man, but yeah, I've tried it, I can't go to control panel and delete it, it comes up with the error: "The Configuration Data for this product is corrupt. Please contact your Support Personnel" So I can't get past Step 3 of that process :-(

I was originally getting an error "cannot uninstall as another version is installed, please delete that first" - then I'd go and try to delete that and I'd get the same error ... Finally fixed that problem, although I had to follow a "fix" solution not a "delete" one, but it did get it to a point where it accepted there was just one and it was broken, and the install disc did it's "fix" thing with windows, and it reinstalled - tried to open it just to see if it was actually working and it said "This product has no or an invalid ProductID, please uninstall and reinstall" ... so I went fine - you die ... except it just won't die now ...

And the greatest part - Pinnacle told me to "upgrade it", just pay them $79.95 and that'd fix it because then I'd have 17 ... I said "no f'n way" - I'm not paying more money for that ... then they went "ok, we'll give it to you for free" - and besides looking sideways them, I'm like "ok, free stuff, cool", but they then told me each of the products stands alone, so it won't actually FIX 14 or UPGRADE 14, it will put a WHOLE NEW PROGRAMME on my machine ... *pulls out some hair* ... And to make it even better, Pinnacle Tech support no longer do support for 14 so they won't answer the question of how to get it off, and their "information database" (or whatever it's called) always starts with "follow the prompts of the uninstall from control panel"
*bangs head on desk*
Why won't it DIE!!!!

Thanks for tip, but yeah, I had tried that one .. failed before I began ... I tried just skipping the step - but it doesn't like you much for doing that ... Got any other tips? I'll try anything ... I think I have tried most things - if they come up in a simple internet hunt, then I've tried it ...

(And Revo confused me ... It came up with about 1000 file paths that I have no idea where they go or what they do, but after the uninstall failed, that happened - can I send screenshots?)
***EDIT - Sorry that's wrong, there are 2232 files and 895 Keys it's wanting me to delete - last time I deleted a registry key I didn't actually mean to, I had to rebuild my machine ... I'm not sure that I'm convinced Pinnacle has added 895 of the things - that's a lot! - Unless those keys aren't Registry Keys***
 
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I wonder, is there a Pinnacle service running?

Right-click Computer and select 'Manage'.

Go to 'Services and applications' > 'Services'.

Have a look down that list - are there any services that were installed by pinnacle?

If so, disable it.

Also, are there any pinnacle programs running in Task Manager? You should select them and 'End process'.

There may be pinnacle programs that are automatically run from the registry too.

Step three in this guide will help you find and remove these.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/faq/id-1860438/reduce-number-programs-run-start-simple-steps.html

When you have done these things then you should try to uninstall again.

Let us know how you like get on yeah.

We might be able to manually delete it if you have the patience.
 
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Ahh, this may not be good because this was too easy to answer ... it's a 'no' - there is nothing owned or claiming to be run by either "Pinnacle", "Avid", "Corel" or "Pixie" in either the Computer Services or Control Panel (I decided to be paranoid and look for all 4) ... I can't tell you what everything running does - but I've been in there often enough to know that stopping some of that 'unknown' stuff usually results in bad things happening, others I know exactly what they are, other's I've just learned to leave them alone lol - hey, I'm not a world class nerd - sorry ... I think my life would be easier if I was!

I was thinking of doing an old fashioned 'search and destroy' with a hunt through my C/ to see what happens, but that didn't actually kill it last time either, just left it so bare that the disc could rebuild it, but I don't want it rebuilt, I want it dead - even finding the extra install files it added and running an uninstall on those hasn't worked (they came with funking 'number' names - useful, at least the publisher name made sense, that's how I found them.

But yep, I can do patient ... I'm up to week 4 on this problem, so I think I've got frustrated anger under control now ... I can try patient 🙂 lol doesn't look like the 'burn' deletes are actually going to work anyway ...
 
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Actually, I just thought of something else - was the program installed for 'this user only'?

Suppose you created a new user account with administrative privileges?

Does Pinnacle show up there?

If so, you might find it handier to temporarily 'move' all the files you want to keep to a folder on the C: drive, create an new account, delete the old account, including any files that belong to that account, then 'move' the files you saved on C: back into the folders they belong to in your new 'Documents' folder.

Of course this might mean you have to reinstall some of your other software and all your current setting, history and customizations would be lost. Would that be a bind?

Then you can simply delete all the pinnacle stuff from the drive, and delete (carefully) every mention of the word 'Pinnacle'.

Do you think that might work? Do you have a lot of software installed for 'this user only'?
 
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I am and have always been the only user on this computer ... I'm not even nice enough to share with my brother - well I will, as soon as he cracks my password - which he hasn't yet lol 🙂 *nah, I let him on, usually he IS my tech support (he takes laptops apart for fun - who does that? who doesn't actually work in IT and is over 30 that is - maybe I'm really not nerd enough to understand the 'fun' in that), but he's as stumped by this as everyone else, I've had 3 people working on this for 3 weeks - we have no idea what to do anymore*

So when I look under "Users", if I'm in Task Manager, it's either Me, System or apparently no-one is using it ...
In C:/ it's Me, Public, or something called "UpdatusUser" (and I got told to never touch that file)

I suspect I could do it, but I'm not entirely sure if I'd actually do a good job of it ... So what do I do - make an AliciasAsylum to go with my Alicia, and then import everything from Alicia to go into AliciasAsylum and make the AliciasAsylum user an admin?
I'm not sure I understood exactly what you said then :-/
 
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Sort of.

First, go to Users in Control Panel and create a new account called AliciaAsylum and give it administrative privileges.

Then 'Log-off' Alicia, so to speak, and open your new account.

Now have a look at your Installed Programs list and see if Pinnacle is there.

Is it?
 
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Ok, I think I will bow down to you and call you "Master", or you know, whatever you'd like ... seriously - HOW DID THAT WORK? I decided to give it a try - to delete it from there through the install/uninstall control panel option ... And it deleted from the AliciasAsylum user, but the Alicia one always claimed it was corrupt ...

So now my question is, is my Alicia user (me) broken? or was that programme just FUBAR?

How did you know that'd work? That is the absolute LAST thing I would have thought of, my brother apparently nearly dropped his baby when I called him and told him the thing seems to be gone ... I'm about to do a C:/ search for anything Pinnacle to make sure it's really gone, but DAMN Dude, what broke on you that made you know that was a solution you could use?



**** EDIT ****

It is gone from Control Panel in the AliciasAsylum user account ...
It still shows up in the Control Panel of installed software on the Alicia user account ...
It is basically all over the shop inside C:\ - well not really, it's dropped from having 70-something search results to just 11, and some of those I can write off because they're backup files. But WHY is it still in the Control Panel?
*I HATE THIS PROGRAMME!!!*


**** EDIT 2 ****
YES, All of the last existing files are in C:\Users\Alicia (Except for two, which are in C:\ProgrameData - weird part, their creation dates are today, but I've been working on killing it all day, since when does killing create?)
 
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Okay, can we delve a bit deeper.

I'm going to try and find key files that Pinnacle uses and try to get the uninstaller to think that the program has been uninstalled.

First, go to Control Panel > Folder Options and select the 'View' tab.

Tick the 'Show hidden files and folders' box and untick the 'Hide protected operating system files'.

Apply, say 'Yeah, yeah', continue and close the box.

Now, Open up Computer and then open the C: drive.

Open the Users folder and then open the 'All users' folder.

Oh, it won't, will it?

Are we okay so far?

You have to take ownership of the file.

Do you know how to do that?
 
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Oh you're going to hate me .. I can't get past step one ... I don't have a 'folder options' option in Control Panel - unless I have to get there in another way that just going 'start > control panel' ...

As for taking ownership of the file, yes I can do that if I know which one I'm taking ...


IGNORE ME - I found it
 
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Done that




Done that ... And actually it opened and let me in just fine ...




Seem to be ... although that file did open without complaint ... which, that wasn't meant to happen was it? Or was it? 😵




Do you still want me to do this step?




oh HAHA lol ... yeah I am messed up ... But hey, that's why my username around the place says I own my own nut-house, 'cause I need somewhere to sleep ;-)
 
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LOL.

Well, you appear to have access to that folder so have a look and see if there is a Pinnacle (or associates) folder in there. If there is, delete it.

Also, at the top of that list is a number of folders that have long, and what we in the trade call, 'hexadecimal names'.

(They are the same characters that plague us when we have to connect to a new network. I re-named mine to 'himnextdoor')

Have a little look inside those folders and see if any of them contain any pinnacle stuff.

On my computer, there are three such folders. How many do you have?
 
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ah, no wonder you know how to kill this thing so effectively - you have it!!

I've got 2 Pinnacle folders

No Avid, Pixie or Corel

Although - I do have a Pixie sub-folder in one of the Pinnacle folders

Where are those number things you're talking about - hexadecimal ... 16 numbers right? (hexa = 6 deca = 10 - altogther it basically means 'the number blah' I think anyway) whatever number string I'm looking for - I don't know where to find it ... (I'm doing BioMed, I'm in a field way way away from computers, I have to know how to use the things, but knowing how to fix them, that something different)

But hey, cool name, mind you, 'Iamnumber16' mighta been funny too 🙂

And yeah I got no idea what I'm doing ... Deleted the two Folders (and the obviously the sub-folders and files while I was at it) ... what's next ...
 
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Yep, it hates me
"The Configuration Data for this Program is Corrupt. Please Contact your Support Personnel"

What version of this do you have? I'm beginning to wonder if getting a Free 17 is actually worth it after all of this :-/
I still don't even know why my 14 broke in the first place - but given how 'helpful' Corel were before I whacked them a couple of times - I mean I ended up having to called Canada from Australia a few times and generally wasted a lot of money to get nowhere - then their answer was "spend more money, and we'll upgrade you to 17", my point was like "and why would I want to give you more money right at this point?" that conversation was kinda funny in hindsight, seriously, who tries to sell someone something that's not really an upgrade, to upgrade something broken that they just want fixed? Then they admit that they're separate programmes *sigh* ... I will never understand I don't think ... But given it's free and I've essentially bought the thing just with international calls to the very nice but very unhelpful Canadians - yay for free stuff - but still ... DAMN! If it is just going to do THIS again, I'm not sure I WANT to install it ... 17 has to be not as crap as 14 right? (well actually I liked 14 before it decided to implode)
 
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And yes, hexadecimal is how we count in base 16.

It's very useful because it means that all 'bytes', that is 8-bit numbers, can be represented by just two symbols.

A byte can represent any number from 0 - 255 in decimal, which is three characters or 00 - FF in hexadecimal, which is two.

And one hexadecimal character represents four 'bits' or 'half of a byte', and rather amusingly, this is known as a 'nibble'.

How did it go?
 
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Well, we'll find it somewhere else then.

Open the 'Alicia' folder in 'Users'.

Open the AppData folder at the top.

Open Local.

Is there one in there? Delete it.

Same with Roaming.

And LocalLow, I guess.

I don't have the program and I'm not sure I want it unless we could find out why it doesn't work.

Try uninstalling now.

I just want to locate the ...

... I have an idea.

Have you ever edited the registry?

Did it uninstall?
 
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couldn't uninstall it from the control panel, same 'corrupt' error
Now that you've written that as 00-FF, isn't that a colour code :-/

the error in full = "The Configuration Data for this Program is Corrupt. Please Contact your Support Personnel"
But Pinnacle only offers support for the current and the one before it (and now that 17 is out, that means 16 & 17 ... 14 hasn't had support for ages, but it's only just stopped working, and for no reason I can work out ... I mean last time I killed it it made sense - I gave the entire laptop a drink of coffee, so it wasn't just Pinnacle that died, but it's worked fine on the Acer right up until now, so almost 18 months, then dead - lasted 2 years or so before that one my Toshiba (I think the Toshiba was the better laptop too sadly it doesn't like coffee, serious problem with anyone or anything I know - ya gotta like coffee!) - but still a swap from a Toshiba XP to an Acer Windows 7 shouldn't have been enough to kill it, especially not after it WAS working for 18 months) Why did I put ALL of that in brackets?
 
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I'll do the rest but DUDE, do you want me to kill my laptop? The only way I'm jumping into the registry is supervised ... I can invite you into a Google hangout to talk me through it, but I'm not guessing at this ... so that'd be a rather loud no, in answer to 'wanna play in the registry' ...

I'll get back to you after I've done the rest ...
(Give me, I don't know, 20 mins to hunt down everywhere Pinnacle is hiding - I assume you want every file it's hiding in taken to the bucket)

And if you don't have this programme, how do you have Pinnacle folders? what else do they make? I know Corel makes a lot but I thought Pinnacle was like CAD, you don't get CAD-Pinnacle hybrids, they're separate products under the Corel banner ... Honestly, I've never had such an issue with something made my Corel before this - usually their stuff can be a pain in the rear to use, but it's stable ...
 
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