I have an InstallScript (IS 2009) project that has somehow gotten messed up. Whether I run the setup.exe or go to Control Panel - Add/Remove programs to uninstall it the application is NOT removed. It appears to run the installation program to uninstall it and says it is finished uninstalling but all the files are still there, desktop icon still there, and it still appears in Add/Remove Programs. I tried creating a new GUID and it still happens. Any ideas what I've messed up?
Tech Support told me to change the GUIDS for all my components, but that didn't work. I figured out it was a ShareCount issue.
Somehow, for some reason, the files that got left behind had a ShareCount of 2 instead of 1. So, uninstall just decrements these counts by one. The files are still there because they have a ShareCount greater than 0.
You can use the MSI Sleuth tool to view the package installed on the machine, and view the components/files. You'll see the share count of some of them.
You can go into the registry using regedit.exe and view/edit the ShareCount as well. It's under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SharedDlls
I asked Tech Support how to insure these files were removed on a user's machine during installation.
They replied: "Please note that this is an expected behavior. Files will not be removed from the target machine unless the Shared count becomes 0. I would suggest that you add the files to the RemoveFile Table. The RemoveFiles action removes files previously installed by the InstallFiles action. Each of these files is gated by a link to an entry in the Component table. However, this is not an recommended method.
Kindly refer to the below-given link for more information:
If you test your installation on your computer, you sometimes end up with a "messed" system. I suggest you test your installation/update/uninstallation on a clean Virtual Machine and see if it works here.
