Quicktime won't open

Hello,
I am running Mac OS X 10.6.8 on a 2010 macbook. For the last few months, everytime I try and open a video file (mostly .avi and .mp4 file types) I click on the file and nothing happens. Quicktime is set as my default video player and in the past when I click on my video files they are automatically opened in Quicktime with no problems. In addition, I have tried opening Quicktime as an application and nothing happens. It just doesn't open.

I can't figure out how to uninstall and then reinstall the Quicktime software, so I have been google hunting for answers to this with not much luck. On ehow.com I found a tutorial titled "Quicktime won't open" that seemed to describe my problem. It said to quit the Quicktime process in my Activity monitor, restart the computer, delete a preference file, restart the computer, repair the disc permissions for the hard drive and then restart once more. Took me a while, but I completed the steps listed and the problem was not fixed. Does anyone have experience with this and/or know a solution?

Erin

Alright, does anyone at least know how to uninstall the version of Quicktime that came with the OS? Then I can do a clean install of Quicktime 7 from apple's website.

Go into your finder window and type in "Quicktime" when the app pops up, drag it into the trash and empty it. Done. You can now do a clean install of Quicktime 7 as you suggested.

Great, thank you! I didn't realize it was so easy. I guess I am used to Windows... i.e. Add/Remove Programs. Is there any lingering evidence of the old Quicktime that I can remove?

Didn't work

Tried all that but STILL can't delete QuickTime because it says "QuickTime can't be deleted as it is needed by Mac OS". Any other ideas guys?