Uninstalling while application still running

[ben]

Hi.

As part of my InstallAware evaluation, I performed the following tests:
1) Built an InstallAware installer around our existing product
2) Installed the product
3) Launched product (EXE and DLLs)
4) Uninstalled with product still running

(This causes our current installer problems, and required quite a few hacks to get correct prompts and/or shutdown). The result was that the InstallAware uninstaller ran without warning that EXE/DLLs were in use and then deleted the installation folder (including the binaries).

What tools do I have at my disposal to make sure the installer can identify and gracefully handle such ‘application in-use’ situations?

To my knowledge, the normal method is to check for existence of a named mutex. I have not found any relevant scripting command to do this. Is there one?

Also, I have found an unanswered post about forcing users to scroll to the bottom of the license agreement:
http://www.installaware.com/forum/viewt ... ght=scroll
Please can you know whether this feature is likely to be implemented? It could become a deal-breaker for us, and InstallShield boasts this feature.

Thanks for your time,
Ben

[CandiceJones]

You can use the Check Process, Check Service, and Terminate Command MSIcode commands.

I'm afraid we do not provide scroll-checking at this time. We truthfully have not had any requests for it - yours is the first! There might be some clever MSIcode scripting that might achieve this though (or a similar effect).

[ben]

Thanks Candice.

Unfortunately I think the License Agreement feature will probably prevent us from progressing with InstallAware. May I recommend that this feature gets reviewed by your product managers? EULA's are becoming an increasingly hot topic the software industry these days, and laywers are recommending that software companies protect themselves by implementing this feature.

Regards,
Ben

[CandiceJones]

Wow, very interesting!

Maybe if you edit the checkbox to read "Yes, I have scrolled to the bottom of the EULA, and read the whole text!"

[Gizm0]

Or by simply putting some numbers on the end of EULA text at Runtime, and read them on a TextBox. Like:

"45334" and then make user type them down on the TextBox and check if they are correct. That way you'll know that user have scrolled down the EULA.

[CandiceJones]

That's a great suggestion.

You could even randomly create a new number each time setup runs, and display it at the bottom of the EULA. This way, you would know for SURE that they have indeed scrolled to the bottom of, AND READ the EULA

So instead of a check-box, you want to put in a text-box (there's already a template dialog like that for most themes), and then validate the number that's been entered in.

That should make your legal team more than happy The only way for the customer to find out the code is the scroll to the bottom of the EULA in this case, so its an airtight case, assuming their real concern is the scrolling.