newbie - uninstall

[ktgdesign]

I am under a huge time crunch!

Uninstall works perfectly when someone goes to the control panel, add remove programs.

But I cannot get it to work using the start, programs, uninstall - I had deleted the short cut and now my client decides they want it available there.

In the shortcuts area of express 6 I have this

shortcut to file as $UNINSTALLLINK$ - the link shows up after an install but when you run the uninstall I get this "Please locate your original setup sources to continue operation"

I have no idea what to do! It only needs to uninstall 3 files that were placed in the users signature folder for outlook.

Thanks so much!

Pkern

[MichaelNesmith]

Both links are identical - you really shouldn't be having problems.
Sorry, I really can't be of more help without having more information.

[crustyzz]

You should add REMOVE=TRUE in the Command line parameters field.

[ktgdesign]

Thanks so much for your help - I was able to get it working again.

Pkern

[tonyv]

Neither my link in ControlPanel\\Add-Remove nor the one in my start Menu work either. I tried the advice above and added REMOVE=TRUE to shortcut's command line, but I still get the error described. Uninstall works fine if I open the original setup.exe.

Help!

[MichaelNesmith]

When it doesn't work, how exactly doesn't it work?

[tonyv]

When I uninstall using either the control panel or the start menu shortcut, I get a dialog that pops up on top of the "updating your system" dialog. The popup is a "Browse for Folder" one which prompts: "Please locate your original sources to continue the operation".

I'm not sure what it is asking me, so I press the Cancel button, and the uninstall crashes with the messagebox: "Line 235: Original setup sources required to complete operation, sources not found."

******************

I'm not sure if it is related, but while trying to reproduce this problem I came across a what has to be a bug in your stuff:

1. Create new "Default" project "bug".
2. Uncheck dialog "maintenance".
3. Build.
4. Install.
5. Uninstall with shortcut from start menu.
6. You get the "Browse for Folder" one which prompts: "Please locate your original sources to continue the operation".

In this case, pressing Cancel doesn't crash uninstall, and it exits gracefully. However, simply deselecting a dialog shouldn't prevent uninstalls from working, so in my opinion, this is a pretty serious bug.

If you do the same as above but leave "maintenance" checked, it works fine.

Interestingly, the shortcuts seem to be identical in each case (no REMOVE=TRUE in either one). However, adding "REMOVE=TRUE" to the shortcut for the first (buggy) case fixes the problem.

************************************

With my real project, however, REMOVE=TRUE has no effect.

Tony

[MichaelNesmith]

This is not a bug. By commenting the maintenance dialog, and not changing your script logic, you are breaking your setup script. The installer is trying to install the program again, instead of uninstalling. If you do not want to offer a maintenance option, edit your setup script, OR:

Create a new project using the Project Wizard, and choose to "disallow maintenance" in the Project Wizard steps. Then you can see how the Project Wizard creates the setup script that works with this option, and you can update your script accordingly.

[tonyv]

I disagree. This is a design flaw in your UI and your script generator. You shouldn't be able to break the install simply by inhibiting a dialog.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you that I recreated my install step-by-step until I located the problem I was really having. Your INF (driver) uninstall feature seems to be buggy. If I delete the INF uninstall step automatically created when I created the driver install, my program unstalls properly (leaving the driver installed, of course).

[MichaelNesmith]

Your reasoning is flawed.

The visual UI interpreter is very flexible and not hard-coded to any particular setup script. It will interpret and display completely custom setup scripts visually. Unchecking a dialog in the UI editor comments out the dialog display line, which properly hides the dialog at runtime. This works fine for all pre-built dialogs using the wizard logic. As I have explained, if you want to build a setup without maintenance mode, the proper way is to change your setup script, and the Project Wizard already shows you how to do that.

You cannot go on doing things the wrong way and expect them to work. For instance, if you want to uninstall your driver, you have to let the INF uninstall command remain there. The IDE already creates this command for you. If you are taking it out, and then complaining that the setup is not properly uninstalling, I have nothing to say other than you are intentionally breaking your setups, and then reporting bogus bugs.

[ulrichard]

Hi,

I had a similar problem. I created an installer with the wizard. Then when I went through the UI I thought well I don't have any components to select, so I don't need Maintenance, Uninstall is enough for me. So I disabled the Maintenance dialog.
The same "search directory of original sources" appeared, and I was not able to uninstall with the link in the start menu.

For a Windows Installer or InstallAware expert this might seem naive, but that's how new users are.

So wouldn't it be a good idea to warn users when they break some part of the logic?