.NET setup project and uninstaller
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11-09-2019 - |
Question
I have created a VS setup project for my app. It install the app to user-defined location and creates several shortcuts in the start menu. It also creates an entry in Control Panel/Add or Remove Programs that can be used to uninstall the application.
I would like to know if there is a way to create a start menu entry (next to other entries created by setup) that could uninstall my app.
So far I found one solution but it's pain to use: I have created uninstall.bat
file that I deploy in my app folder and I'm adding a shortcut to this file. Contents of the *.bat
looks like this:
@echo off
msiexec /x {0B02B2AB-12C6-4548-BF90-F754372B0D36}
What I don't like about this solution is that every time I update a product code of my app (I'm doing that whenever I update my app version as VS suggests) I have to manually edit this file before building setup project and type correct new product code.
Does anyone knows a simpler way of adding uninstaller to the app?
Solution
You can edit the .bat file to accept an argument.
@echo off
msiexec /x %1
In the setup project, where you define the shortcut, add the [ProductCode] property as the argument.
OTHER TIPS
I had this exact problem.
What I did was this:
- provide the uninstall.bat file. This file gets installed unconditionally
- provide a custom action in the installer, that rewrites the uninstall.bat file, and inserts the correct product code.
here's the script that runs as a custom action. It rewrites the uninstall.bat file, then deletes itself.
// CreateUninstaller.js
//
// Runs on installation, to create an uninstaller
// .cmd file in the application folder. This makes it
// easy to uninstall.
//
// Mon, 31 Aug 2009 05:13
//
var fso, ts;
var ForWriting= 2;
fso = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
var parameters = Session.Property("CustomActionData").split("|");
var targetDir = parameters[0];
var productCode = parameters[1];
ts = fso.OpenTextFile(targetDir + "uninstall.cmd", ForWriting, true);
ts.WriteLine("@echo off");
ts.WriteLine("goto START");
ts.WriteLine("=======================================================");
ts.WriteLine(" Uninstall.cmd");
ts.WriteBlankLines(1);
ts.WriteLine(" This is part of MyProduct.");
ts.WriteBlankLines(1);
ts.WriteLine(" Run this to uninstall MyProduct");
ts.WriteBlankLines(1);
ts.WriteLine("=======================================================");
ts.WriteBlankLines(1);
ts.WriteLine(":START");
ts.WriteLine("@REM The uuid is the 'ProductCode' in the Visual Studio setup project");
ts.WriteLine("%windir%\\system32\\msiexec /x " + productCode);
ts.WriteBlankLines(1);
ts.Close();
// all done - try to delete myself.
try
{
var scriptName = targetDir + "createUninstaller.js";
if (fso.FileExists(scriptName))
{
fso.DeleteFile(scriptName);
}
}
catch (e2)
{
}
I think I could have done this with WiX, but I didn't want to learn it.
Another option is to call the msiexec to uninstall from the application itself, if a certain command line argument is given - see the example shown here for further detail: http://endofstream.com/creating-uninstaller-in-a-visual-studio-project/
By doing it this way, you will not be forced to see the command prompt when uninstalling :)