This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Corrupted uninstall helper.exe

  • 1 reply
  • 0 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

ps67boy2
ps67boy2
more options

I rec'd a 'side by side error msg and cannot get into FF. All solutions were pointing me to Microsoft and I thought that was not the path I should be taking...besides it looked more complicated than my skill level could handle. When I went to uninstall then reinstall FF, using both Add & Remove Programs from the control panel as well as using the FF uninstall via the helper.exe file I got the message that the helper file was corrupted. How do I get through this bottleneck? IMPORTANT: my email ps67boy@yahoo.com IS NO LONGER VALID. As I can't get into FF to correct it, please use [email-removed]. Thanks, Alan

(email address removed by moderator; please do not post personal information on a public website; Forum rules and guidelines)

I rec'd a '''side by side'' error msg and cannot get into FF. All solutions were pointing me to Microsoft and I thought that was not the path I should be taking...besides it looked more complicated than my skill level could handle. When I went to uninstall then reinstall FF, using both Add & Remove Programs from the control panel as well as using the FF uninstall via the helper.exe file I got the message that the helper file was corrupted. How do I get through this bottleneck? IMPORTANT: my email ps67boy@yahoo.com IS NO LONGER VALID. As I can't get into FF to correct it, please use [email-removed]. Thanks, Alan <i>(email address removed by moderator; please do not post personal information on a public website; [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/mozilla-support-rules-guidelines Forum rules and guidelines])</i>

Modified by cor-el

All Replies (1)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

This issue can be caused by a corrupted or incomplete Visual C++ installation (multiple versions can be installed side-by-side; SxS) that is missing some runtime components (Redistributable Packages) that Firefox depends on (problem with an embedded manifest file that specifies a specific runtime version).

See "Visual Studio 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2022":

You may also have to install the Visual Studio 2013 Redistributable Package. You need to reboot the computer.