Updated to Windows 8.1 last night. Today I found RealPlayer Cloud listed as a device on my computer, which I had never seen before. Haven't used it in a long time, (unwittingly installed recent update) so I attempted uninstall in Control Panel.
Control Panel told me it had a problem uninstalling it, perhaps it was already uninstalled, did I want it to remove RealPlayer from list of programs? I opted to keep it there until I was sure it was uninstalled.
Searched the web for solutions to not being able to uninstall RealPlayer. Surprisingly, RealPlayer came up in the results, so I clicked on the link that took me to
http://www.real.com/realplayer/cloud/product/uninstall. That started a brief survey at the end of which I expected the uninstall would happen. It did not.
Frustrated, I returned to the search results and tried the instructions at http://blog.joemanna.com/how-to-uninstall-realplayer/ but found RealPlayer would not allow me to remove the program files because they were "in use."
I then launched Task Manager, ended every process associated with Real or RealPlayer I could find, and also stopped any service associated with it. Still was unable to remove the program files for the same reason.
Then I removed all the related icons on the task bar and start window. Still cannot remove the program files, and RealPlayer Cloud is still listed as a separate device in My Computer, although it does not appear at all in the device screen (so I cannot
remove it from there, either).
The only RealPlayer Removal Tool suggestions I have found so far are on an eHow page at
http://www.ehow.com/how_7295117_remove-realplayer-completely.html. I am both wary and skeptical of these recommendations.
How can I get rid of this pest?