3 replies to this topic

[Irina]

Hi all,
Where the Windows Installer stores the information about installed components? I would like to remove several components after the installation and want not that the Windows Installer tries to restore they when my application will be executed. Is it possible to remove these components manually from the registry (or ....) so the Windows Installer will consider that these components should not be on the system?
Thank you for advance,

[Ian Blake]

Place the no longer wanted components in a feature  eg.TEMPFEAT.  You can then remove these components with the command line
misexec /q /i {ProductCode} REMOVE=TEMPFEAT

Another way of deleting the unwanted file is to put them all in the same component.  Create a registry key as the keyfile for the component.  You can delete the companion files without a worry.  The component would still be installed so there would be no attempt to auto repair.

You should not try to remove a component by direct editing of registry keys.  If you reaslly want to muck about with the internal data of a system that changes from platform to platform and version to version, you can find it under a key similar to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrenVersion\Installer\UserData\<one or more Sids>\Components.  Here there is a list of Component Ids (Not in normal string form, but easily translated).  Now if you want to delete this you need to edit the cached msi file to remove the entry in the FeatureComponents Table so that Msi will not decide that the component is missing.

[Irina]

Thank you very much, Ian. The most of my components have a registry key as the keyfile. But several components have file itself as a keyfile. What about this?

[Irina]

Thank you very much, Ian. The most of my components have a registry key as the keyfile. But several components have file itself as a keyfile. What about this?