[wix-users] Debugging help - Uninstall not removing files

[Hoover, Jacob]

Assuming you still have the bad MSI, install the bad bundle, then manually add the condition or just remove the custom Action using Orca/InstEdit/... type tooling, then uninstall it with the tweaked MSI.

I am noy 100% certain that Windows Installer won't still look to it's cache, in which case if the manual right click, uninstall doesn't work you may need to re-cache (msiexec /fv ...) the tweaked MSI.

From: wix-users <wix-users-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> On Behalf Of Molly Erskine via wix-users
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2022 11:24 AM
To: wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org
Cc: Molly Erskine <MErskine at edinst.com>
Subject: [wix-users] Debugging help - Uninstall not removing files

Good afternoon,

Using WiX Toolset I have built:

1. An Installer for my program
2. A Bundle that includes this Installer and also it's prerequisite packages
During development I have been releasing iterations of the Bundle for testing, with changes being made to both the Bundle and Installer between each release. I simply incremented the Bundle Version to keep track of changes, but only the minor version (so v0.0.2.4 to v0.0.2.5).

In one iteration of my Bundle, I had included a Custom Action within the Installer that would launch the program when installation was complete, however I forgot to add the condition to this Custom Action to prevent it from running on Uninstall. As a result, this particular version could be installed but not removed. When running the Bundle and specifying Uninstall the Bundle would run this Custom Action, launch the program, and Uninstall would fail.

I fixed this issue for the next iteration of the installer, however the machine it had been tested on now had an unremovable (by regular methods) version of the Bundle. In this case I used a third party program (Revo Uninstaller) to remove the files. This appeared to be successful as the next iteration of the Bundle successfully installed on this machine. However when uninstalling this new iteration the Bundle very quickly states it succeeds but none of the files regarding the program are removed.

What can I do to correct this behaviour? I have been looking into residual files, cached paths and Registry Keys but have not been able to track down the exact cause of this issue.

I reliably recreated this issue on multiple VMs, installing using the "bad" bundle, removing the files manually, and re-installing and removing the program with "good" bundle and the result is the same, the uninstall states a quick success but does not remove the program.
The error does not occur if only the newer version is used.
I am aware that I am likely missing files on manual removal that then cause this issue, but just don't know how to track them down.

I am using:

* WiX Toolset v3.11
* Windows 10 and Windows 11
* Visual Studio 2019 for building both my program and installer / bundle
* The program itself is a WPF / C++ application

Any help would be greatly appreciated, please let me know what other information would be useful!

Kind Regards,
Molly
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