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uninstall does not work

Firefox Troubleshooting
packratt replied
packratt
packratt

Something has caused me to receive the error message

Couldn't load XPCOM

when I try to start Firefox and Thunderbird on my XP based laptop. I've been using these programs for years on it.

From searching, it appears that I need to uninstall both programs and reinstall from a fresh download.

When I go to control panel and attempt to uninstall nothing happens. When I go to helper.exe in the uninstall folder nothing happens.

What do I need to do?

Something has caused me to receive the error message Couldn't load XPCOM when I try to start Firefox and Thunderbird on my XP based laptop. I've been using these programs for years on it. From searching, it appears that I need to uninstall both programs and reinstall from a fresh download. When I go to control panel and attempt to uninstall nothing happens. When I go to helper.exe in the uninstall folder nothing happens. What do I need to do?

All Replies (2)

guigs
guigs

A clean reinstall may be necessary. You would only need to delete the Firefox program folder to make sure that all files are removed before installig a freshly downloaded version of the Firefox installer.

Manually back up and restore Firefox profile data

packratt
packratt Question owner

Chosen Solution

Thanks,

I had already broken down and attempted a reinstall of the new version over the old version without uninstalling and it worked for both Firefox and Thunderbird.

I didn't realize I could get away with just deleting the folder. I thought I needed to do the uninstall and clean up the registries, etc as well.