Installing an Alias for the Uninstaller to the Dock on OS X or macOS Will Fail to be Removed during Uninstall

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Summary

This article outlines an issue where InstallAnywhere fails to remove the uninstaller alias when added to the Dock during an uninstall

Symptoms

When an alias is created for the uninstaller and set to install to the Dock on OS X or macOS, an uninstall will fail to remove the Dock icon. The Uninstall Complete panel will report the following message:

The following items could not be removed:
Unable to remove alias: Shortcut in the Dock

If you try to click on the Dock icon, a question mark will appear on the icon.

Cause

This problem has been reproduced and determined to be an issue in our software. This issue has been submitted to our Engineering team as Issue# IOJ-1771084. Our Engineering team is investigating this issue, but at this moment, there is no estimated time frame for when it will be fixed. There is a workaround available below.

Steps To Reproduce

1. Create a new InstallAnywhere project
2. Go to Sequence > Install and change the Destination Path of the "Create Alias, Link, Shortcut" action for the uninstaller to "The Dock"
3. Build the installer for Mac OS X
4. Run the installer and notice the uninstaller alias gets created on the Dock
5. Run the Uninstaller

Workaround

The issue can be avoided by renaming the uninstaller so that it does not contain any spaces. For example, if the uninstaller's name is "Change $PRODUCT_NAME$ Installation" and you change it to "Change_$PRODUCT_NAME$_Installation" the Dock icon should be successfully removed upon uninstall.