Uninstall with Product Code (Feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable)

[gsaunders]

We installed product from the installaware setup exe file.

Now we are testing uninstall and I can do it via:

- Control Panel / Program and Features
- exe command line setup.exe /MODIFY=FALSE REMOVE=TRUE UNINSTALL=YES

BUT if I try via msiexec it gives me the error: Feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable

- msiexec /x {THE GUID}

Now the EXE was originally installed from a network resource so my immediate thought is this is an accurate message. BUT I would have sworn we ahve done this with other applications and they have uninstalled properly. As a matter of fact I have done this WITHIN an installaware setup where I have removed another application that WAS installed from the same network folder and it did uninstall.

I had thought there was a cached part of the resulting MSI that MSIEXEC would have found.

Thanks in advance for your feedback. I haven't messed with installers for a while so fresh back into it and just getting back up to speed.

Greg

[FrancescoT]

Dear Greg,

you don't have to run MSIEXEC to remove the installed package. You may use MSIEXEC when uninstalling the package from the original MSI file (but in your case, this seems to be an EXE).

A copy of the setup package gets Always stored under the pre-defined setup cache directory of the target system.
This location is usually stored with the "UninstallString" value of the respective uninstall registry key;
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{PRODUCTCODE}

alternatively, when installing a native x86 product on a x64 target OS, this will be available as;
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{PRODUCTCODE}

Finally, to uninstall the product use the Path returned by the UninstallString.

Eg;
C:\ProgramData\{PRODUCTCODE}\<setup.exe> MODIFY=FALSE REMOVE=TRUE

Hope this helps you.

Regards

[gsaunders]

I am not having issues uninstalling with the original EXE file using command line:

setup.exe /MODIFY=FALSE REMOVE=TRUE UNINSTALL=YES

What I can't do is uninstall using:

msiexec /x {747F8587-235D-42A4-820C-9A16B4A72D97}

That's where the error comes from.

The uninstall string in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{PRODUCTCODE} is:
C:\ProgramData\{747F8587-235D-42A4-820C-9A16B4A72D97}\AutoVaultInstallNT32_on_NT64.exe

First thing I notices is the GUID here is NOT the Product Code, but the Revision Code. Normally when I have used msiexec /x to uninstall an application installed I use the product code. Regardless it is same error either way.

Yes the path contains the installaware EXE / MSI parts, but shouldn't I be able to uninstall with normal msiexec /x {PRODUCTCODE} command without the "feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable" error?

Greg

[FrancescoT]

Dear Greg,

Yes the path contains the installaware EXE / MSI parts, but shouldn't I be able to uninstall with normal msiexec /x {PRODUCTCODE} command without the "feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable" error?

InstallAware integrates features that are not available with Windows Installer (command line parameters are fully customizable while the same is not possible with other MSI files), due of this and as I said previously, it's forcibly necessary to execute the setup cached copy of the setup exe.

Hope this helps you.

Regards

[gsaunders]

Thanks for the clarification... I was able to uninstall the 2 older version of this app with MSIEXEC, but those were created with Visual Studio 2010 and that explains why they did uninstall with just MSIEXEC command.

Thanks again.