InstallAware

Just want it says. It shouldn't because you're uninstalling.

Specifically you have to uninstall SQL Server 2008 FIRST before you can remove an application and have it clean up databases etc.

Thus it shouldn't check to see if it's there when doing a maintainence or uninstall.

Not so much a bug, when this behavior is specified in your very own setup script Just customize it to your liking.

My point here is that it shouldn't by default. Why in god's name would an uninstall fail because pre-reqs weren't there? Good way to bork a computer with no way of uninstalling unless they can locate the original install media!

These are just basic things that I'm reporting that need to default to the right and natural way of doing things. I realize I can get around it, but I shouldn't have to.

Well, some customers run database uninstall scripts and such as part of the application removal process. So in that case, they really do need the pre-reqs.

Unfortunately, there's no one right way to do anything. That's why InstallAware's flexibility in being able to customize everything is great. And its not something you can get with any other tool at this time.

SQL server is not a standard pre-req and requiring something that could well prevent software from ever being uninstalled is not a good default to have because you're basically defaulting to broken.

Yes, I understand MS has created DLL hell part 2 but you have to think about the end user that all of a sudden has software on their machine that they can't get off. They're not going to blame MS for making the XML SDKs show up in the add/remove programs so they deleted it thinking it was spyware. They're going to blame us because our software won't uninstall.

I would think that defaulting to "just remove" and allowing people to require it and risk having a system that is borked would be a much better solution!