1 reply to this topic

[baumack]

I am working on a very complex install/uninstall for a military system. The users will add A LOT of data that they might not want uninstalled when we uninstall the product. Because it is a MIGHT, I can't just make the subdirectories permanent. Because we don't go into the UI sequence when the user does an remove from the Add/Remove Programs, I can't pop up a dialog and ask him. SO, I thought I would simply call an exe to ask the questions and then kick off a command line uninstall (this would also solve my many problems with nested installs). However, I can't figure out how to convince the system to call an exe instead of msiexe /x at uninstall.

There is a key in the registry [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{GUID}\Uninstallstring] that seems to indicate what will be called. For all installs (at least on my machine) that use MSI, this key is set to msiexec /x. However, some older installs have placed programs there. I would like to do this my install. I can't just change this key in the registry as the install is cached and changing this key after it is install does not seem to have any effect.

I found in the help that there used to be a script command that would do this in InstallShieldPro, but it's not supported anymore. Are there any alternatives? Setting ARPUNINSTALLSTRING in a custom action???

I am using ISW 2.01 and our product only works on W2K.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Bill

[Irina]

Hi,
It seems to me you can set subdirectories as permanent, then ask user about data removing (a custom action with message dialog which can detect what button has been clicked) and then remove these subdirectories manually from a custom action (e.g C++ dll function).
Good luck,