# I can't uninstall WoW... literally **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [February 12, 2009, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467 "2009-02-12T01:47:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Yodalicious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yodalicious/32/8195_2.png) [@Yodalicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yodalicious)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/1 "2009-02-12T01:47:42Z")
I haven’t played WoW in several months, and do not intend to buy Lich King. So I decided I would uninstall it. However, it is suddenly missing from my programs menu and from add/remove programs, and the program folder does not appear to have an uninstall.exe; though I swear there used to be one. Any ideas on uninstalling, or is this a Blizzard trap to get me to play again? ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/2 "2009-02-12T01:59:47Z")
Can’t answer your question. I did sign on tonight to bitch about the opposite problem: I bought the game last night, and can’t play it because it is still downloading patches 24 hours after I first popped the disc in my PC (and my internet is about 1Mbps, so it’s not dial-up). If uninstalling is a crappy an experience as installing, I’m taking it back for a refund. ---
**Author:** ![Yodalicious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yodalicious/32/8195_2.png) [@Yodalicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yodalicious)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/3 "2009-02-12T02:54:24Z")
I know for a fact that WoW used to appear in all the places it isn’t appearing know. So, I am really confused. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/4 "2009-02-12T23:53:33Z")
> [@Dag\_Otto](#): > > Can’t answer your question. I did sign on tonight to bitch about the opposite problem: I bought the game last night, and can’t play it because it is still downloading patches 24 hours after I first popped the disc in my PC (and my internet is about 1Mbps, so it’s not dial-up). If uninstalling is a crappy an experience as installing, I’m taking it back for a refund. That’s way longer than it should take, even for a first install. I recently (about six months or so) re-installed WoW from a wholly unpatched version (the one I bought when the game first came out) and it took two, maybe three hours tops to download and install all the patches. You might want to give customer service a call, see what’s up with that. ---
**Author:** ![PopeJewish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@PopeJewish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PopeJewish)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/5 "2009-02-13T01:56:31Z")
there are programs you can get that allow you to manually delete things out of your registry (I know you can use RegEdit but I think that takes a bit of confidence in the registry, which is generally something you don’t want to play around with, whereas there are some specific programs that easily allow you to select what registry entries you want to delete and does it all for you). It’s been awhile since I’ve done anything like that on a PC (only use one at work and usually only to type up worksheets/tests for my students or post on straightdope :D) than you could just manually delete the files from your drive I ABSOLUTELY CAUTION you not to screw around in your registry if you don’t fully understand what you’re doing, though, as you can seriously screw shit up on a windows system if you play with the registry (not to start a war here, but the fact that windows still uses a registry is abso-fuckin-lutely mind boggling to everyone who uses a different OS, be it Linux or OSX) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Batman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/22d042/32.png) [@The\_Batman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Batman)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/6 "2009-02-13T02:16:14Z")
I agree, that 24 hours for an upgrade is way to long. When I re-installed my 2-year old version it only (hah!) took 13 hours. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/7 "2009-02-13T02:30:40Z")
Sounds like Dag Otto has a firewall problem. Maybe you need your [ports forwarded?](http://www.portforward.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Words\_on\_the\_Interweb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b19c9b/32.png) [@Words\_on\_the\_Interweb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Words_on_the_Interweb)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/8 "2009-02-13T02:44:05Z")
Is it possible you already uninstalled WoW? I don’t think the uninstall actually removes the program files from your computer, so it may be that you uninstalled it previously and just never went in to manually delete the files. You could always try popping the original disks in; I’m fairly certain there’s an uninstall option from the autorun setup. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/9 "2009-02-13T05:01:06Z")
> [@Words\_on\_the\_Interweb](#): > > Is it possible you already uninstalled WoW? I don’t think the uninstall actually removes the program files from your computer, so it may be that you uninstalled it previously and just never went in to manually delete the files. You could always try popping the original disks in; I’m fairly certain there’s an uninstall option from the autorun setup. I don’t know about the OP but I’m having a strange problem with the synch program for windows mobile. I uninstalled it, deleted the left over files like you’ve said, but have discovered now, more than two months later, that the program (wmdcbase.exe) is **still** running somehow. It doesn’t show up under add/remove programs, there’s no folder for it under program files, and Vista can’t find it through a search but that’s hardly surprising given it only finds 60% of things without crashing anyway ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/10 "2009-02-13T08:13:15Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Sounds like Dag Otto has a firewall problem. Maybe you need your [ports forwarded?](http://www.portforward.com/) Thanks, but the windows firewall was disabled and the appropriate ports forwarding setting were applied on the router. It was just endless patch after patch after patch. Once I finally downloaded the 2.2 GB patch, I thought I was good, but there were about nine more after that. It’s working now, but that’s a shitty experience to foist on a new customer. (sorry for the hijack) ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/11 "2009-02-13T13:18:21Z")
> [@Dag\_Otto](#): > > Thanks, but the windows firewall was disabled and the appropriate ports forwarding setting were applied on the router. It was just endless patch after patch after patch. Once I finally downloaded the 2.2 GB patch, I thought I was good, but there were about nine more after that. > > It’s working now, but that’s a shitty experience to foist on a new customer. > > (sorry for the hijack) Uh, are you starting from the base game (no expansions)? That might have something to do with it. Either way though, hit up FileFront and download them directly if you can. The tool Blizzard uses for patching goes slower the fewer people that are connected at once, so unless it’s patch day, it’s almost always faster to just get them from a third-party site. FilePlanet also will have them, though I find it harder to navigate. ---
**Author:** ![lizardling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@lizardling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lizardling)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/12 "2009-02-14T00:13:16Z")
> [@Jayn\_Newell](#): > > Uh, are you starting from the base game (no expansions)? That might have something to do with it. Either way though, hit up FileFront and download them directly if you can. The tool Blizzard uses for patching goes slower the fewer people that are connected at once, so unless it’s patch day, it’s almost always faster to just get them from a third-party site. FilePlanet also will have them, though I find it harder to navigate. _makes mental notes_ I got hit as hard as Daddypants did with the downloading and patchpatchpatch. Why couldn’t they also have a roll-up patch for those of us coming to the party this late so we don’t have to babysit **six hours** of download and install? ☹ Started trial-\>base CD-\>BC. Man, that was painful. ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/13 "2009-02-14T16:26:48Z")
Well, the other option, if you can use it, is to borrow the BC and WotLK CDs from a friend, and install those instead of patching up to 3.0. It’ll cut down on how much patching you have to do. ---
**Author:** ![Apocalypso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Apocalypso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apocalypso)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/14 "2009-02-14T16:42:18Z")
Daddypants, go into your **control panel** , then **Add/Remove Software** (if you’re on XP, I forget what it’s called on Vista), then you’ll get a list of programs installed on the machine. If you see WoW on the list, try to uninstall it from here. If it’s not there, you (or someone else :dubious:) has uninstalled it already. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/15 "2009-02-14T22:45:08Z")
> [@Dag\_Otto](#): > > Can’t answer your question. I did sign on tonight to bitch about the opposite problem: I bought the game last night, and can’t play it because it is still downloading patches 24 hours after I first popped the disc in my PC (and my internet is about 1Mbps, so it’s not dial-up). If uninstalling is a crappy an experience as installing, I’m taking it back for a refund This: > [@Jayn\_Newell](#): > > Well, the other option, if you can use it, is to borrow the BC and WotLK CDs from a friend, and install those instead of patching up to 3.0. It’ll cut down on how much patching you have to do. When I first installed WoW, I couldn’t even play it until the next day because the downloader was indicating that the patch downloads were going to take 6-8 hours. A few weeks later I purchased The Burning Crusade, and was extremely puzzled when I launched the installer and was presented with a “Play The Burning Crusade” button instead of an “Install The Burning Crusade” Button. I eventually dug up the information on the tech support site that, as of the 3.0 patch, all of the TBC content had already been downloaded to my machine and all I needed to do was visit my account web page and “upgrade” my account using the serial number from the TBC package. So that’s what was going on - it was already installed, probably so that I could see the blood elves and draenei characters - I just couldn’t access the content for myself until I upgraded. I suspect much of the Wrath of the Lich King content has also been downloaded via a patch, seeing as how I can see Death Knights and their gear on my screen. ---
**Author:** ![Yodalicious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yodalicious/32/8195_2.png) [@Yodalicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yodalicious)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2009, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/16 "2009-02-15T02:51:57Z")
> [@Words\_on\_the\_Interweb](#): > > Is it possible you already uninstalled WoW? I don’t think the uninstall actually removes the program files from your computer, so it may be that you uninstalled it previously and just never went in to manually delete the files. You could always try popping the original disks in; I’m fairly certain there’s an uninstall option from the autorun setup. Nope. Not uninstalled. I can launch WoW from the desktop shortcut. Frakkin’ wierd. How does an application just disappear from the programs menu and add/remove? I’ll try putting the original disk in and see if there is an uninstall option. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/17 "2009-02-17T00:07:14Z")
> [@Apocalypso](#): > > Daddypants, go into your **control panel** , then **Add/Remove Software** (if you’re on XP, I forget what it’s called on Vista), then you’ll get a list of programs installed on the machine. If you see WoW on the list, try to uninstall it from here. If it’s not there, you (or someone else :dubious:) has uninstalled it already. Read the OP again. :dubious: To the OP: [Ccleaner](http://www.ccleaner.com/) will get rid of whatever is left of it. ---
**Author:** ![counsel\_wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/65b543/32.png) [@counsel\_wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/counsel_wolf)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-uninstall-wow-literally/485467/18 "2009-02-17T00:35:30Z")
Wow exists solely as the directory it installs into. Delete it and any shortcuts to it and you’re done. No need for anything fancy. There’s a couple of registry entries but if I hadn’t just written that you would have never noticed their presence. If you care, you can yoink them out as well. The reason for this is to facilitate the reverse process. Hook your friends machine onto your network and copy his/her wow directory onto your machine, make a shortcut to launcher and you can play. I’ve had cause to do this multiple times. In fact I keep my laptop WoW copy patched fully just in case my main PC has a hard drive failure.