9th November, 2009  

Bonjour? Au Revoir.

Lets say you’re using Autoruns one day and the following conditions arise:

  • You notice that the Bonjour service has somehow made its way onto your system (usually courtesy of iTunes or Adobe Creative Suite).
  • You find yourself incensed that some dodgy and largely unnecessary Apple networking software has installed itself without asking.
  • You discover that the Bonjour service in inexplicably absent from Add/Remove Programs, thus further infuriating you over the stealth nature of the install.

Under these conditions, DON’T do what I did and simply delete the references to mDNSResponder.exe and mdnsNSP.dll using Autoruns. All that will get you is a machine that, after its next reboot, can no longer resolve DNS addresses correctly, leading to a short sharp visit to System Restore. Instead, here’s how to remove Bonjour without tanking your network connectivity:

  1. Run the following via Start -> Run:"C:\Program Files\Bonjour\mDNSResponder.exe" -remove
  2. Go to the C:\Program Files\Bonjour folder (or C:\Program Files (x86)\Bonjour if you have ended up with a 32-bit version of Bonjour on a 64-bit OS)
  3. Rename the mdnsNSP.dll to something else (it doesn’t matter what, my preference is for mdnsNSP.turd)
  4. Reboot
  5. Delete the aforementioned Bonjour folder from Program Files.

Et voila.

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About The Angry Technician

The Angry Technician is an experienced IT professional in the UK education sector. Normally found in various states of annoyance on his blog. All views are those of his imaginary pet dog, Howard.

7 responses to “Bonjour? Au Revoir.”

  1. Michael Jones says :

    Used your fix to remove Bonjour after being unable to access iTunes for several days. It worked a treat. THANK YOU.

    Kind Regards

    Michael Jones.

  2. patrick says :

    Au revoir means see you again, whereas I think what you want to say is Adieu.

    • AngryTechnician says :

      I think you’ve read my original intention correctly, but sadly, I’ve had to remove the Bonjour service from some machines on multiple occasions, so in many cases bidding it “au revoir” is unintentionally apt.

  3. Jim Coyne says :

    merci beaucoup. worked like a charn

  4. Carole says :

    Iv tried to remove Bonjour with your instructions, butit has’nt worked, its an old version that needs to be removed so I can reinstall itunes.Its driving me mad!

  5. Leonardo says :

    Why can I not do even the first step?? Every time that I try to remove the mDNSResponder.exe, Windows says to me that I cannot remove it because I haven’t got the autoritation to do it (even if I’m acting as an amministrator).
    Someone can help me, please?

  6. Bernard says :

    Man, am I gad that some angry people do positive steps when things like this appear. Thank you very much. Maybe you could help me with another problem, that of getting rid of programs in my programs list under Control panel that says it no longer exists but is still listed.

    Thank you very much for your post.