Files not deleted after uninstall

[alexandara]

Hello All,

I am using InstallShield 2009 to develop a setup file for my application. The default installation directory is set as "C:\Program Files\My Application".

Observation 1: The installation is successful. But after running un-installation, only some of the files are deleted, but not all the files and folders are deleted.

Observation 2: If I change the installation directory to some other location, the files are folders are deleted as expected.

Observation 3: Another observation is that, if I perform un-installation with same default directory in a PC which does not have InstallShield 2009, the un-installation deletes all files and folders as expected.

Do I need to any setting while creating the setup? Have anyone faced similar problem?

Could anyone please suggest inputs to resolve this issue?

Best Regards,
Alex.

[soorajganga]

I guess... the install location C:\Program Files\My Application is being shared across other applications which you might have created using installshield...

Can you please check whether all the application related files are getting uninstalled from the install folder?

Also, check whether there are any other applications refers to the same install folder.

Thanks

[alexandara]

Thanks for your suggestions. Actually there is no other application shared in this folder and I noticed that only the files of type .exe and .dll are not deleted.

Best Regards,
Alex.

[deecole]

I've seen this problem on machines where many installs and uninstalls have been done, and it's caused by the reference counts getting corrupted.

Look at this registry key after your uninstall and see if your files are listed there:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SharedDLLs

If so, there's your problem. Delete the keys for your files that should be deleted and see if the problem goes away.

Cheers,

David

[alexandara]

Hi David,

Thank you very much for your inputs.

I was able to see the registry contents remain even after un-installation in:
“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SharedDLLs”.

I removed all the registry keys and repeated installation and un-installation once again. Now all the files and folders are removed as expected.

Thanks very much for your help once again.

Best Regards,
Alex.

[deecole]

Alex,

Glad you got it working. You may want to consider whether you realy need to specify components as shared or not.

Cheers,

David

[alexandara]

Hi David,

Thanks very much for your suggestions. I will relook into that...

Best Regards,
Alex.