Uninstalling an IA v.6.23 installed app. in Vista

[Pete B]

Hello
I've been away from the IA forum for a while but very recently searched it for some clues about uninstalling under Vista. My app's. installations are created with IA v.6.23 and as a pointer gleaned from other threads they do employ a flash movie while in/uninstalling.
I recently received a message from a user stating that he could not uninstall a copy of my software. My previous way out of this as a last resort was to say turn off UAC, reboot, uninstall app., reinstate UAC, reboot yuk ! but even that doesn't work for him. Now, this I found during testing on Vista release candidates and it was really only necessary if the original install was made through an administrator account but not using 'Run As Administrator'. If both were used, (why I don't know because to simple old me installing through an Admin account means you are running as an administrator!), then no problems were seen.
So where exactly do we stand with this ? I thought that installing through an Admin account should be sufficient but apparently not. So is the situation that we must insist the user installs via admin. account anduse 'Run As Administrator' to ensure sufficient elevation of permissions ?
How can this guy uninstall ? - perhaps it's a one off, his msi database has been damaged maybe ?
What's the current situation within IA now ? There have been 3 or 4 minor version releases since 6.23, has anything changed in respect of this issue since 6.23 ?
Do please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that any installation made with eg. v6.23 and employing a flash movie cannot be readily uninstalled, is that correct ?

I would truly appreciate advice and comments on this ...

my thanks and best wishes

Pete B.

[SteveX]

I found a way to uninstall, but not pretty. Redeploy the app with a rebuilt installer using the latest IA version. The user will be told the prior version will require uninstalling (via prereq's) the previous version before continuing. The uninstall will succeed and the freshly installed app when later uninstall fine on Vista.

[Pete B]

Steve
Wow ! that is not pretty, but I am grateful. So, the bottom line here is that an installer created in an earlier version of IA eg. v.6.23 can never be uninstalled by itself if it incorporated a flash movie ? !
I had this working under Vista RC1 but it appears not to work under RTM builds. Now I'd better find a diplomatic way of explaining this to the folk who installed my software but subsequently wish to uninstall it, after all they're probably not going to take too kindly to having to install another version of what they don't want, to remove the lot. Ouch !
Does anyone have any other workaround they could put forward please before I have to go with Steve's method.

thanks and best wishes

Pete B.

[MichaelNesmith]

Yep. This was one of the workarounds for Vista introduced in InstallAware 6.5+. For some reason, when a Flash video is showing, the MSI engine in Vista failed to uninstall. So we had to build in a very elaborate, top-secret workaround

You could just build an "uninstaller" app in InstallAware, which would just uninstall the old version; using only that relevant code bits from your existing main setup.

[Pete B]

... a "very elaborate, top secret work around". Great stuff ! This is just soooooo... James Bond or should that be 'Austin Powers'
As ever, my thanks for your advice and suggestions.

best wishes always

Pete B.