Creating Uninstaller Using Visual Studio 2008

Question

I know how to create the Installer for an application but I want to know how to add the Uninstaller into the Applications work group. Is there anyway to add this from the Visual Studio 2008 Deployment Project. Or do I have to create a separate application for that altogether?

Answer 1

As the other answers already stated, there already is an uninstaller feature provided with your installer project.

Besides that, this link explains how to create a short cut to the uninstaller feature, that most users usually expect to be present somewhere in the start menu.

As an alternative to the batch file described in the blog post, you could also create a short cut file (.lnk file) that launches the command from the batch file (Msiexec /x [ProductCode]). Assign a nice icon and include the file to your setup project.

As a last step, let the installer copy that link file directly into the creted start menu folder.

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

Having a Setup Project to install your application gives you a uninstaller too, AFAIK at least.

It will revert everything the installer does, meaning files will be deleted, shortcuts gone, etc.

Answer 3

A Visual Studio setup project (Web or Windows Forms) automatically adds an entry to "Add/Remove Programs" (Windows XP and below) or "Programs and Features" (Vista/Windows 7) that lets you remove the program that you installed.

There's no need to do anything special to get this functionality as it's built in for you =)