Orphaned entries in Programs and Features

[maurosturaro]

Some of my customers have reported multiple entries of my product in Windows "Programs and Features" control panel.
After some investigation I discover this issue:
ANY setup build with InstallaWare, when running a "Previous Version Uninstallation" during a setup, remove the program but don't remove the "Programs and Features" entry.

If the user cancel the installation after this step an orphaned entry remain in the "Programs and Features" control panel.

Usually the end user continue with the installazion so the orphaned entry is overwritten with a new one, and nobody see the issue.

When I build a new version of my product I change the Product Name ( my product has the version number in the name).
This cause the orphaned entry to remain in the list.

Can you fix this issue ?
Is there any way to clean all this orphaned entry with some code in the setup of the next release of my product?

Regards,

Mauro Sturaro

P.S. I have waited an answer for ten days from your site http://support.installaware.com
now I see that it has no update by more than a year. Please close it or give feedback.

[MichaelNesmith]

You may call Delete Registry on the orphaned entry when changing your product name. Place the call right after (Un)Install MSI Setup - provided the call has succeeded.

We have temporarily deprecated the support site, it will be coming back up soon with many fresh articles and publications. Sorry for the inconvenience!

[maurosturaro]

Thanks Michael,

could you give me some suggestion on what registry (s) to remove,
and if they are the same in XP, Vista, w7 ,w2003, w2008 ( 64 & 32 bit) ?

[MichaelNesmith]

For where the uninstall keys are recorded by platform and by user mode setting, it might be best to consult Microsoft SDK documentation.

[maurosturaro]

A little bit of "Rocket Science".
Will you fix this issue in future release ?

[MichaelNesmith]

This one is easy enough, actually - just call Delete Registry on:

HKLM and HKCU (delete both to cover "All Users" and "Just Me" installation scenarios) \SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\$TITLE$

Where, $TITLE$ has been the actual value of the variable at the time Apply Install was called on your old version software.

[maurosturaro]

Thanks Michael,
I was just joking.
It's ok to build some little management code to work around this kind of little issue.

I want only to know if you agree on automatically remove this kind of entries in future release of your product or if you consider this behaviour "by desing".

The difference to me is to handle just the actual entries (a fixed and known list of names) or build a more robust and flexible code to handle all this kind of entries that I will found in the future.
I'm planning to put in the name the version and installation type and more, becouse is easier just to look at the installed program list and know such details.
As an example some old version of Sql server do this for each named instance installed ( the instance name was in the name of the installed program)

Regards,
Mauro

[MichaelNesmith]

This is an interesting one - (Un)Install MSI Setup already has a flag for enhanced support for InstallAware setups; possibly this could be addressed with some additional $TITLE$ detection code from the plug-in on the external setup.