Google earth again

[Suff]

TeamViewer

Free for personal use. You download it, run it (don't install it), then you can give the number and the code to someone else running teamviwer and they can both view and control your machine allowing them to help you resolve issues.

I use it along with Logmein (paid only), to control my different machines when I'm away from home or travelling. Of course I install it but you don't need to with Teamviewer which gives you total control.

[Suff]

Ok after a bit of experimentation, I've found the following.

Google Earth puts it's icon in the "Program Files" folder in Windows, not on the desktop. I'm running Windows8.1 and it essentially vanished. On Windows 7 it would be visible by clicking Start and then All Programs (or programs I don't recall). It is visible for me because I've created a link to the Program Files folder and can open it and view it.

I have a command for you. I suggest you do the following.

select this and copy it

msiexec.exe /X{817750FA-EC6A-485D-9901-0683AE6FFDF1}

Press the windows key and the R key together which will bring up the run dialog

Paste msiexec.exe /X{817750FA-EC6A-485D-9901-0683AE6FFDF1} into the run dialog and press enter.

You will be prompted to confirm that you want to uninstall it. Click Yes.

You should see Google Earth uninstall itself.

Then re-install it. I never asked which version of Windows you are running??

[tonicha]

Windows 7 Ultimate Suff

[Workingman]

Well, Ton, here is what I found/did.

Reading around I found that GE is a pig to uninstall completely and that simple use of its uninstaller does not cut it. Many people suggested that editing the registry is the only way, but that is scary. There had to be another way.....

Here is what I did:

I downloaded GE from the link I gave erlier then monitored its installation with Comodo Programs Manager (CPM) and Advanced Uninstaller Pro (AUP) and Revo Uninstaller. Tried it and it worked. I then uninstalled it with CPM, my go-to uninstaller. It removed GE plus a number of registry entries.

I then used a program to search the registry for GE and it found 21 leftover entries, including the one mentioned by Suff in his post. Next I used CCleaner. It is usually quite safe to use it with defaults but to do a proper clearout it needs to have some other areas ticked so that it gets down deep. I have those to hand if you need to do all this. When it had finished it had cleared out the TMP and TEMP folders and the registry now only had seven entries. These were all empty and titled Google Earth and Google Earth Pro - safe to leave and safe to delete.

I now went back to the Google Earth Pro installer I downloaded from the link already given. I right clicked on it and opted to Run as Administrator. Hey presto! Done.

It looks as though those on the blogs were right: GE needs a full cleanout and until some script kiddie comes up with a dedicated uninstaller it could be hard work. One thing often mentioned about reinstalling is for auto updates of an installed version to be turned off as soon as installed. Download the newest version from time to time and install it directly over the old version by running as it Admin - then turn off auto updates again..