Uninstalling files not Installed with InstallShield

[Twtime]

Hi,

I have created an Installer for my product. That works fine. When I run my product extra files or folders are created e.g log files. When I use the uninstaller to uninstall my product these files remain and the directories are not deleted. Does anybody know a way of deleting files that the Installer did not Install but are in the same directory as my installed product?

Thanks for you help,
Twtime

[FlyingFox]

Take a look at the RemoveFiles action and RemoveFile table.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/msi/setup/removefile_table.asp

I personally find Microsoft's documentation tends to be painful to read, but I found a nice write-up on the subject here -

http://geekswithblogs.net/ajshurts/ (see bottom-half of page)

You will of course, use such info at your own risk.

Twtime wrote:
Hi,

I have created an Installer for my product. That works fine. When I run my product extra files or folders are created e.g log files. When I use the uninstaller to uninstall my product these files remain and the directories are not deleted. Does anybody know a way of deleting files that the Installer did not Install but are in the same directory as my installed product?

Thanks for you help,
Twtime

[RobertDickau]

What type of project are you using? For an MSI project, the RemoveFile table mentioned earlier is appropriate; for a MultiPlatform project, you might look at the Delete File (or Delete Directory) action, which has an option to delete the specified item at uninstall time...

[Twtime]

Hi,

Thanks for replying so quickly. I am using InstallShield Multiplatform 11.5. I took your advice and I created a component and added a delete directory action to it. In the delete directory action I use the absoluteInstallLocation as my directory to delete. It works. I have a two new issues though:

I would like to be able to prompt the user to make sure they really want to delete everything. I tried setting the always prompt property in the advanced properties of the component but this did not work.

The second issue I have is after uninstalling I am asked if I would like to perform a restart which I don't think is neccessary. Do you know how to prevent this?

Thanks for all your help,

Twtime

[FlyingFox]

Twtime wrote:
Hi,

I would like to be able to prompt the user to make sure they really want to delete everything. I tried setting the always prompt property in the advanced properties of the component but this did not work.

The second issue I have is after uninstalling I am asked if I would like to perform a restart which I don't think is neccessary. Do you know how to prevent this?

Thanks for all your help,

Twtime

Try creating a property in the property table: REBOOT=ReallySuppress

I don't do user-prompts for deletions. I work in a corporate environment where we want uniformity accross the desktops. So I can't help you there!