Files not removed during uninstall after upgrading to IA2010 ENT SP1

[sumankg]

I have a installer project that I have built in IA2010 Enterprise. This works perfectly fine in the field. In my installer I have four components: Application, Client, Host, InstallAnywhere VM Component. And these are driven by 4 Features, and 2 install sets. Using InstallAnywhere 2010 without SP1, whatever components are selected by the user, all files get installed and uninstalled correctly.

I upgraded to SP1 as there are some fixes I need. However a new bug is now introduced in my project.

After upgrading to the IA2010 Enterprise SP1, I was prompted with a build failed as follows:
Build failure: The uninstaller should be associated with InstallAnywhere Uninstall Component

Which I fixed by adding a new InstallAnywhere Uninstall Component. See my fix for this in another thread.

This is the only change that I made, and now the build succeeds.

Running some tests, whenever the user selects an Install Set that contains the Host component, the files associated with that component never get uninstalled. Why, nothing else was changed in this project? I enabled console debug output and during the uninstall process there are a list of files that are outputted by the Uninstall Files tasks. And they do not list any of the files or registry settings that were originally laid down by the Host component.

I have looked through my project I have no items that are check not to uninstall, the Host component is listed as a Standard component.

All I need to do to get this to work is revert back to my checked in project and build with IA2010 Enterprise without SP1. Enabling console debug output, I can see that the Uninstall Files task correctly shows the Host component files and registry settings to be uninstalled.

Any thoughts?

[jerome_IA]

Maybe they made some changes in the registry that makes previous version incompatible ?

If you always use the same path for your installations, you can try to delete or rename the main registry before uninstalling:
Win: C:\Program Files\Zero G Registry\.com.zerog.registry.xml
Lin: /var/.com.zerog.registry.xml
Or you can change your installation path and test the uninstall.

I also experienced some issues where this main registry file gets corrupted (preventing complete uninstallation), so let's try !

Regards

Jerome

[sumankg]

Jerome,

Thanks for the response.

My build environment is in Linux. I didn't know if you were talking about the registry files on my IA project build machine or of the client machine that the installer runs on.

First, In my Project -> Info section I have the option Do not update the product registry checked. I stopped using the IA product registry over a year ago for my installations as I have had issues getting my update installations to install and uninstall items correctly.

Second, the machines that I test the built installers on are VMWare virtual machine images that are clean with no existing .com.zerog.registry.xml files in Program Files\ZeroG, /Library/Preferences/, or /var/.

I have tried removing the /var/.com.zerog.registry.xml file from my linux build machine, built a fresh set of installers, and reran the installers on OSX 10.5, OSX 10.6, XP, Vista, Windows 7. Still the same problem on all platforms, this has to be something with what SP1 does to the project upon opening and building.

Building with SP1 succeed, but the uninstall process seems corrupted and files for the Host component still remain. Also odd is why is the only component affected the Host component?

Any other ideas/thoughts anyone?

[jerome_IA]

I was talking about client machines ... anyway this did not help you 😞

I am still using IA2010 original version (I installed patchA but had to revert back due to some other issues) ... I was about to update to SP1 but seeing all the posts, I will wait a few ;-).

hoping someone will have some inputs for you .....

Regards

Jerome

[andreaM]

I have the same problem with the unistaller in IA Enterprise 2010 SP1. Actually, it is even worse: while a few files and directories are removed, most of them are not. I also have a shortcut on the desktop which is not removed.
It is interesting that the uninstaller displays a message "could not remove ..." for two directories (I have no clue why it could not remove them), but there are many more directories which it simply did not remove, without giving any warning. And it also asks for a reboot to complete the uninstall (which seems completely unnecessary since I did not execute any of the installed programs, and it does not seem to make any difference).

I checked the file .com.zerog.registry.xml, and that one is actually cleaned (i.e., there are no products nor components in it after the uninstall), so the problem is probably not coming from there (at least in my case).

Is anybody able to run successfully the uninstaller with IA Enterprise 2010 SP1? If so, did you need to do anything special to make it work?
Does anybody know if Flexera is working on a fix for this problem?

Thanks in advance for any suggestion.

[zunkination]

I am also having this problem. I'm using SpeedFolders to install a group of files into a magic folder. The properties on he SpeedFolder has "recursively uninstall" selected, yet those files remain after an uninstall.

[jerome_IA]

Hi,

If you do not need IA product registry, then you can disable it in Project/Info ("Do not update the product registry").
At least do this for testing if the uninstall well works without this!

--Jerome

[zunkination]

No, that didn't seem to make any difference.

[CharlesW]

Hotfix A for IA 2010 SP1 has been made available. This hotfix "should" resolve the issues being reported here, with regards to the product not being uninstalled (actually, components are not being written to .com.zerog.registry.xml) You can download the hotfix installer at the following KB article.

http://kb.flexerasoftware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=Q211178

This should resolve any known uninstaller issues with IA2010 SP1

Regards,

Charles
Flexera Software

[zunkination]

Let the thread Necromancing begin! 😛

Charles, thanks for the help. I back-burned this portion of the project since October, and just got around to trying to fix it today. This hotfix made all the difference, all my files are being properly uninstalled now. Thanks.