Install / uninstall corrupted?

[dec]

Our govt. customers are having a nightmare installing / uninstalling since we started using IA 15. We're seeing two problems: Attempts to install a newer version fails if the existing version isn't uninstalled first, at which point they can't uninstall the old or install the new -- both fail. Is there a tool or process that can remove the old version in this case?

The second uninstall issue is that, on some PCs, uninstalling can take (almost) forever. Just got an email from the govt. IT guy that the latest uninstall took over 90 minutes, for another user it took over 4 hours. These are all Win 7 64 bit PCs.

Thanks.

[FrancescoT]

Dear Dec,

Honestly, I don't believe the problem can be imputable due the use of InstallAware ... otherwise, can you imagine how many topic about similar problems would be started by other users?

Anyway regarding your first problem, it is not clear to me if you are able to un-install it manually using Add Remove Program, or it can't be un-installed at all.

Also, if this problem occurs with a specific machine only, probably it could be caused by an OS failure or damage.
Unfortunately doesn't exist a possible tool to use, probably you can try with restoring back a previous system image, in order to apply a working and available system restore point.

If the above points doesn't reflect you case, please specify.

About your second issue that you seems to have, even in this case and in order to find out the possible causes, it is important to know more details about.

does it happen using any Win 7 64 OS?
If not true and the problem can be reproduced with some specific targets only, very probably exist something with those machines.
By the only information you shared it is not easy ... but for example, it could be caused by an Anti-virus application.
is this the case? have you tried with switching it off?

*Note that some antivurus are very intrusive and in some circustances, just switching them off it is not enough.

Regards

[dec]

Thanks for the reply.

Both problems have occurred on multiple PCs, but not all of them. I do believe that they are all Windows 7 64-bit.

I believe that the government users tried to install a newer version without first uninstalling the existing version. It's possible that the version they already had was a different IA project -- when we got IA 15, it would not build our install project from IA NX, so we made a new project. Could that be part of the problem?

Not intending to cast blame on IA, just want to solve my customer's problem, and figure out if we're doing something wrong with our installation. At this point they can't uninstall the old product, nor install the new one. They haven't yet had the opportunity to try re-installing the old version, then trying to uninstall it from the Control Panel. Don't think that'll happen until next week.

If all else fails, is there a process to manually remove whatever existing registry entries, files, etc., that prevents the new version from installing?

Thanks again.

[FrancescoT]

Dear Dec,

To have a setup package to be recognized as an upgrade of an already installed one, this must share the same PRODUCTCODE, UPGRADECODE and a different REVISIONCODE.

If the above requirements are not meet, the package will be installed as a different application and conseguently, the already installed package will be not removed by the new setup.

Probably, but of course I am only supposing this (... without knowing what your project really does), your new package tries to access to some components that are actually used by the already installed package and due of this, it fails to install.

As first step, please verify if the already installed package can be manually removed.

Regards

[dec]

The existing program could not be uninstalled. We manually deleted existing files and relevant registry entries. New installs seem to be OK. My mistake was to not insist that previous installs be removed via the control panel, since I had created a new IA project.

Think we're OK now. Thanks for your help!

[FrancescoT]