Yeah, this whole cannot remove stuff is very annoying. However, the reasoning is understandable since WMP11 and IE7 are the only versions of the apps to run on Vista. System restore is your best friend as a first step. If you really neeeded to nuke these apps because of problems in them in order to reinstall them, I'd delete thier program directories, reinstall, and if that doesn't work, repeat the process and remove registry settings for the programs. OR... get a brute uninstaller to do the dirty work.