Uninstall of program erasing entire hard drive?!

[Chris_DMG]

I am using InstallAware 9 and ran into something rather depressing.
I had a problem in the install I was working out so I ran my program through the debugger. Worked okay and I was able to fix the logic problem.
A couple days later I went to uninstall that copy of the program so I could do some other testing.
I used the Add/Remove programs uninstall link for the application that was installed through the InstallAware debugger and instead of just uninstalling the program from the Targetdir it then began deleting files off my entire hard drive. The original project folder was erased, then it moved on to other files on my drive before deleting the Windows XP operating system files. Needless to say I have lost the operating system entirely, all the files in my documents, my other project folders for previous test programs, most of the files in the Program files directory, and who knows what else.

While I was able to recover the project files and my other production software projects were backed up on other machines I'm still missing a lot of other programs and personal projects that weren't.

Has anyone else had this happen uninstalling an application that had been installed through the InstallAware debugger?

[giaviv]

Dear Chris_DMG,

Is it possible that your uninstall script has a bug and it deletes your files? You could also attach that script here or send it to [email protected]

Best,
Aviv Giladi
InstallAware Support

[bokkie]

Chris, I'll be happy to lint your project and see if there's something you might have inadvertently introduced that might do it.

I can't guarantee to run it - for obvious reasons.

[Chris_DMG]

I will be going back over the uninstall section, but we have done numerous installs and uninstalls on a number of systems here during the testing. The only time it did this was when the program was installed using the InstallAware debugger.

For looking at it, do you just want the uninstall section?
It looks lik we just use Apply uninstall and then go through a quick clean up valling the uninstall for sub-applications we install during the initial setup, and lastly if the targetdir folder exists and is empty (no remaining files or folders) we remove it.

Thanks for the replies,
Chris

[ckaware]

I've just run into this using InstallAware 2012! Looking into it, but it completely killed my system GRRR...

[Chris_DMG]

Hmm, I didn't realize I wasn't subscribed to this.
ckaware, I'm sorry to hear you had this happen too.
I was not able to find anything before which may have made this happen, but I just had InstallAware delete another drive on uninstall. This time it wasn't the system drive, but was instead my data partition.
The strangest thing about this is that when the program I removed was installed it was installed to the C drive and nothing was put on to the D drive, so I am completely baffled as to why InstallAware would choose to delete files from this second drive. This install also was not performed using the debug mode, but as a normal run of the installer.

Right now I no longer think I can trust InstallAware.

[giaviv]

Are you setting the NATIVE_LOGGING variable to anything in your script?

[Chris_DMG]

No, my version is still InstallAware Studio 9 R2. I don't have a NATIVE_LOGGING variable to set.
Also I have not been able to reproduce this issue on demand which makes it hard to test conditions.

[giaviv]

Chris,

Thank you. We haven't been able to reproduce this on IA 10 and later, but please let us know if the problem emerges again.

[ckaware]

This is the same issue as NATIVE_LOGGING=TRUE. It's in another thread I started and should be fixed in IA 2012 patch or IA 2013.

[giaviv]

Does this issue reproduce in version later than 9 without setting the NATIVE_LOGGING variable?

[ckaware]

This is regarding the IA 2012 issue I posted in another thread where NATIVE_LOGGING=TRUE wiped my entire drive.

Chris

[giaviv]

Please realize that incorrect usage of system variables can result in unintended behavior like this.
Everything is working properly EXACTLY as documented in this case. This is therefore NOT standard behavior.
InstallAware, being a setup compiler, is subject to whatever you, the setup developer codes in it.
You cannot hold InstallAware accountable for faithfully executing your commands.