I screwed up, how can I uninstall my program?

31
votes

My Wix installer worked installing my program, but it's broken for uninstallation. A file is removed too early, and it's needed further down the line. The uninstaller fails and reverts its changes.

This means I can't remove the package from my machine, and hence can't install any further builds of my installer (a considerable inconvenience). How can I force removal of the package?

7
wixwindows-installeruninstallation
There are two main approaches: fix the package (either in place with a tool like orca, or via installation of a minor upgrade), or, for internal cases only, trying to remove traces and pretend it was never installed. Which are you looking to do? (If the latter, why weren't you using a virtual machine?) - Michael Urman
Before trying the below, maybe try to run Microsoft's own tool to solve installation / uninstallation problems. Try to download and run it, and see if this solves your problem first. The below should work, but is a little hacky. - Stein Åsmul
@SteinÅsmul has the correct answer. The accepted answer screwed up the uninstaller MSI, and when trying to ununinstall it it kept saying it was "Out of sync" with the original MSI in my development directory (?!?!?). This tool from MS zapped the entire installed thing. - Lavamantis
@SteinÅsmul I screwed up even more after using the tool. It might be caused by me canceling an incomplete uninstallation. It left some registry keys so subsequence uninstallations after normal installations did not remove the files and the shortcuts anymore. Luckily, a recent system restore point saved me. Anyone trying this tool must not cancel their uninstallation! - keithyip
Cleanup like this is always unsafe, and there are risks of corruption and errors. However, the other cleanup approaches are even more dangerous - generally. If you have done "half-cleanup" before by hacking the registry and such things, then the tool will almost certainly fail. - Stein Åsmul

7 Answers

27
votes

Update, Stein Åsmul: Injecting this newer list of cleanup approaches.

  1. Find your package in C:\Windows\Installer, where Windows keeps copies of installed MSI packages. The names are generated randomly, so you'll have to look at the creation dates of the files.

  2. Open the MSI file with Orca. (Unfortunately there is no simple download for the orca installer. You can get it by installing the "MSI Tools" of the Windows 10 SDK, and then searching for orca.msi in C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits.)

  3. Delete the offending custom action from the CustomAction table

Now you should be able to uninstall the package.

UPDATE: You can find the actual cache MSI file using Powershell. That was for one package, you can also get for all packages (scroll down to first screenshot).

8
votes

This command usually works for me:

msiexec /fv installer.msi

It somewhat recaches the installer, so you can try again with a corrected one.

One time this command didn't work and I had to use Microsoft FixIt. It solved the problem (quite a shock for me).

6
votes

Depending on the exact reason of the behavior you described, you might have at least a couple of options.

If the reason of the failure is a custom action which runs on uninstall, and this custom action is conditioned with some properties you can influence upon, you can try to pass the desired value via the command line:

msiexec /x {YOUR-PRODUCTCODE-HERE} RUNMYACTION=false

In this sample RUNMYACTION is a Windows Installer property which participates in a custom action condition, and if you pass false as its value, the action won't run.

Otherwise, you can fix the logic (or just disable the custom action explicitly) and build the new MSI package. Then upload it to that target machine, and run like this:

msiexec /i YourPackage.msi REINSTALL=ALL REINSTALLMODE=vomus

Here YourPackage.msi is a new fixed package, REINSTALL=ALL instructs the msiexec to re-install the product using this new package, and REINSTALLMODE=vomus (the v part of it) will re-cache the MSI package and you'll be able to remove it the normal way afterwards.

A side note: you should test your installation on a virtual machine in order not to risk your real one.

4
votes

FYI: In Windows 8.1 the installers have been moved here: C:\ProgramData\Package Cache\

0
votes

If you are really desperate and all solutions above don't work try

msizap.exe

This will erase all that your installer put on a machine
LITTLE WARNING

Don't run msizap without knowing what options you want to run it with (for a list of options run msizap /? first).

0
votes

I used this little tool also from Microsoft

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17588/fix-problems-that-block-programs-from-being-installed-or-removed

Basically this tool can be used to "repair issues including corrupted registry keys that block you from installing or removing programs"

What it fixes:

  1. Corrupted registry keys on 64-bit operating systems

  2. Corrupted registry keys that control the update data

  3. Problems that prevent new programs from being installed

  4. Problems that prevent existing programs from being completely uninstalled or updated

  5. Problems that block you from uninstalling a program through Add or Remove Programs (or Programs and Features) in Control Panel

It can be used for:

  • Windows 7
  • Windows 8
  • Windows 8.1
  • Windows 10
-1
votes

I usually just look for <Your Installer's Name>.msi or <Your Installer's Company Name> in the registry and delete some of the uninstall keys from some of the Products under the Windows installer trees and everything usually works fine and dandy afterwards, although this WOULD leave some stuff lying around like cached installers and possibly tons of other registry keys for each file installed, etc. but its ALWAYS worked for me when developing installers because honestly, who cares if one MSI is left over and cached somewhere? You're using the machine for development anyways, right?