Broken installer, uninstall can't complete; can I force it?

[keith]

Hello,

I'm developing a new installer, and I've screwed it up a bit. It does the install portion correctly, but due to a malformed variable (I used %targetdir% instead of $targetdir$, so I can't even fake the filesystem location by hand) the uninstall fails (actually a DELETE FILES call fails) and the uninstall aborts.

Is there a way to force the uninstall to ignore errors? Since I'm still working on this setup, it is no problem to do some manual cleanup afterward, but I'd like the system to think the package has been uninstalled so I can try another install on that machine.

Sugestions?

Keith

[MichaelNesmith]

Does building a new version and letting the new version setup automatically remove the old version help?

If not, try MSIZAP - this tool nukes the traces of an old product from the registry, even though you'll have to manually clean up leftover files and registry entries, you'll be able to start clean.

Or just generate a new product code!

[keith]

OK,

Thanks for the tip; building a new version and installing it forces a removal of the broken version and then successfully installs.

I'm curious; what is the technical difference between the uninstall that a new installer uses and the uninstall shortcut created by the previous installer? Why does one work and the other fail?

Keith