Windows 7 - can't uninstall IE 9 - prevents new IE from installing (1 Viewer)

Have an HP Portable running Windows 7 Professional 64 bit.
It has a IE 8 working. IE 9 shows to be a Installed update that evidently failed.
It is just amazing how many things I have tried that won't fix it.

It is a known error that IE 9 can prevent later versions of IE from installing.
MS has Scripts, FixIt, and all kinds of things that return an error when trying to uninstall IE 9. A Registry Cleaner didn't help. I am not the only one with this problem.

It is a common problem evidently. Does anyone have an idea short of wiping a hard drive?
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2872074/en-us
(halfway down) During the installation process of Internet Explorer 11, you may receive the 9C59 error.
To resolve this issue, you may uninstall Internet Explorer 9, restart your computer, and then install Internet Explorer 11.
To uninstall Internet Explorer 9 (these just get an error)

Have been to a dozen sites and all suggestions, instructions have failed.
Trying this one this weekend.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...1-update/03916a82-d7b2-4e99-b45a-5b2132d0ba7e

Simplest answer don't use IE

I wouldn't normally say use this instead rather than try and fix the problem but tbh there are better browsers out there:

Firefox, Opera, Safari to name but 3 IMO IE is just well pants.

If you have to use IE (not sure why!) you might want to try restarting in safe mode (hold F8, in most cases, on start up) and uninstalling (IE8 and/or IE9) from there then installing IE11 (you may want to download the standalone version rather than allow Windows update to do it).