Vidc.Cleaner deleted all codecs from my system.

[Episode]

As the title says, after I ran vidc.cleaner program that came with xvid 1.1 final (koepi's build), all my codecs were lost from virtualdub's codec list, except xvid itself of course. In addition to video codecs, it seems that it has also deleted all my audio codecs as well (only pcm left), since none of my games have sounds anymore (because all the sounds were in mp3 format). Is it supposed to do that? This happened to me only once and I cannot reproduce it, but it still sounds like a really nasty bug to me.

Anyway, I guess I don't have any choice but to reinstall my whole system because of this unless someone knows a good way how to get my codecs back (I think the dll's are still there, could registering them again do the trick?).

[Yong]

Reinstall a whole system would be pain ;)
IIRC only directshow filter can register by using regsvr32 command, not ACM/VCM and vfw codec.

Try this 2 registry files :)
NOTE: its export from my computer, before merge it to registry, delete some "extra" codec/value that your computer dont have :p
hope thats help.

[Caroliano]

:search:

Koepi already answered that, and said how to fix. Also, tell that for the devs of vidc.cleaner.

[Koepi]

Hm, vidc.cleaner isn't guilty. But the thread where I explain the issues with the first xvid-1.1-final-installer is the right place to search; it's the built-in uninstaller which was faulty.

http://www.free-codecs.com/guides/How_to_install_default_codecs_in_Windows_XP_2000.htm

This is one solution to the problem. (And much more generic than a registry export.)

[Episode]

Yeah, exporting those registry files from a friend's computer worked just fine and now my systems seems to be operating like it used to be. Thanks for Yong and Koepi for their tips.

[Mecklenburg]

I know this is an old post, but here's a quick way that I fixed this problem of Vidc.Cleaner (Jury's still out) or some other application removing all of my approx 11 standard Windows XP sp3, win media player 11 video CODECs.

I did a lot of searching and found two recurring themes; remove the CODECs with Snipe and reinstall WMP11, and two use Gspot/Sherlock to find out what CODECs are broken and reregister them. I also saw posts to forget about the standard pack and to install other CODECs (junk) downloaded from whereever, but I think that's just opening yourself to more trouble.
1) when I ran Vidc.Cleaner, it reported it 'cleaned' my CODECs, but couldn't read 13 of them, and so it did nothing with these (I assumed later, these were my standard set that were broken and unrepairable by Vidc.Cleaner)
2) posts stating to uninstall the std. CODECs from Device Manager didn't work for me. I was able to delete individual CODECs (it appeared), but upon reboot, they were reinstated into the list and remained active to play files requiring these CODECs
3) posts to remove CODECs with "codec sniper" doesn't work, the program crashes on my machine and many others I see in other forums
4) posts to unregister the XP default CODECs with gSpot in advanced mode doesn't work, these CODECs show as unregistered already. The associated files for these CODECs were also reported as 'missing' by either gSpot or Sherlock. And, I tried a reinstall of media player, but these cannot be reinstalled with a reinstall of WMP11.
5) I was able to remove CODECs from programs I've long ago uninstalled by manually editing the registry, but these is tedious and not apparent for the std. set of CODECs
6) I tried to register the CODECs reported by gSpot, at least the information I had, which was the driver files (*.dll, *.ax) from the command line, but this failed and the registration server tool reported it couldn't trace the link or that it was an invalid file

So what worked? I ran gSpot from a good computer and saw that the common Dll file that could be registered for the std. CODECs was "quartz.dll". When I registered this from the command line, all the CODECs were restored to full working order, and all the errors reported by gSpot or Sherlock were eliminated. It could have saved me a few days of downloading tools, editing the registry, reinstalling and reconfiguring WMP11, and reading up if I could have found simple information such as this from the start. I also saw no reference to this problem in the Microsoft Forums or KB. It seems as though most posts head off on tangents such as an irrelevant work-around (load a different app/wipe your disk and reinstall XP), a disguised sale (try this), or empathy (I had this happen too..), all which are a waste of time to read. Hope this saves someone else some time.