How To Uninstall DirectX

DirectX is a family of "application program interfaces" (APIs) first released in 1995 to enhance the gaming developers write to a standard interface without having to know what hardware was installed on the computer. This interface provides access to video cards, joysticks, sound card, and other devices and, over the years, has become popular with software developers.

There have been DirectX versions 3, 5, 6, 7, 8.x, 9.xx and now DirectX 10. Microsoft Windows XP originally shipped with DirectX 8.1 by default. After the release of Windows XP, DirectX was upgraded to DirectX 9.xx and with the introduction of the new Microsoft Vista operating system DirectX 10 became available. Note: You can also download the latest version of DirectX from the Microsoft Download Center

How to uninstall and reinstall DirectX
Although DirectX is an integral part of the Windows operating system, sometimes it can get corrupted and cause problems. DirectX is notorious for having versioning problems where each new version is not fully compatible with the previous version. DirectX problems arise most often when you install and older game that was designed for an earlier version or you are running Windows XP and the game needs a newer DirectX version.

DirectX is an integral part of the Windows operating system so a uninstall option was never provided. The only official way of removing DirectX is to go back to your systems restore point where the current version was installed, which in most cases means going back to the point where your first purchased your PC. Another alternative is to reinstall your operating system and load the latest version. Both of these uninstall methods seem draconian.

A third alternative is to use a third party uninstaller . Some commercial uninstallers support the removal and reinstallation of DirectX, however, check the reviews before using one because some can be unreliable and cause more problems than they solve. After uninstalling DirectX with an uninstaller, restart your computer, as this will automatically reinstall the version of DirectX that was supplied with the operating system. After that you can download and reinstall a newer version of DirectX if desired.

The final alternative is to remove DirectX from their computer manually and then reboot the computer to reinstall the latest DirectX available. This technique requires that you to hand edit your Windows registry. If this is not done properly, you can cause your computer to crash and fail to reboot correctly so it is important that you create a restore point before you start and are very careful in what you do. Incorrect settings in the registry can cause serious problems, including making your PC unusable. Many registry cleaners, such as Registry Genius , can help you create a Windows registry backup from which you can restore your current registry settings.

To manually uninstall DirectX follow these steps:

  1. At the Start menu, select Run, type ‘regedit’ and press Enter
  2. In the Windows Registry Editor, find the registry key for DirectX. This is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\DirectX
  3. Delete this DirectX folder
  4. Exit the Registry Editor and restart your PC
If this is done properly, during the reboot process, Windows will automatically reinstall the original operating system's version of the DirectX driver. After that you can download and reinstall a newer version of DirectX if desired.

After reinstalling, you might want to confirm you have the correct DirectX version on your computer. You can do this by running the dxdiag command from Start > Run, which will open the DirectX diagnostic tool utility. This utility provides you with a lot of information about the DirectX version installed on your computer.