zachdms

This is one of the top issues end users of the Windows Media Player 11 beta are having. I owe it to those users to do due diligence to find the best meaningful solution available. I can certainly hack around what CCleaner is doing here, but after I contemplated that for a while I realized it's probably not the best solution. I'm writing other packages that would be afflicted by this problem too down the road. *shrug* There's just a concern here that needs to be resolved - fans of "Delete Everything Possible From My Hard Drive!" may love the current CCleaner behavior, while users of the IE/WMP betas have been very shocked to realize the net effect of that lil' checkbox. This has been one of the top ~3 complaints or so for both betas, which frankly was pretty stunning. We'll work together to make nice and figure out some better solution. <3

Other uninstall: That's not really viable, since you wouldn't have the right uninstall files anymore, which can be fairly system-specific. Once you destroy those files, you're in a fairly bad state.Beta tailoring: The Hotfix Uninstaller detection method, regardless of beta status. That's why I just sent MrG an email just now per his PM - we'll try to straighten this out for people. Assuming there was a beta flag or detection method, there would still be a significant level of user pain if the RTM uninstall/rollback folders for IE, WMP, or other update.exe client were deleted. What's the specific criticism as regards program uninstallers? I suspect that you and Andavari are raising slightly distinct points, and knowing the specifics of your concern makes it easier for me to address it if possible. Cheers, -Z

I don't think we necessarily get into the theories of installer/uninstaller design. I've been in the field for about ten years, have worked with everything from Jet's old tools to NSIS, designed several... - everything's got its pluses and minuses. It shouldn't come as an surprise to you that for MS XP packages, update.exe and MSI are the chief Microsoft installers at this time, which means that correspondingly those uninstall/rollback/restore methods must be used. These will work fine provided that external forces don't nuke them from space, as it were. Anyways, the argument of how an uninstall should be designed properly isn't an argument that you or I are going to make any headway on - there's teams of smart people working on that technology. What you see is how WMP11 is going to work. What we're interested in now is CCleaner working as smoothly as possible for users. Yeah, if people want to take their system into their own hands, it's fairly clear to them what they've done. Unfortunately, it's also apparent that people aren't clearly understanding that the CCleaner definition of "hotfix uninstaller" is "update.exe installed packages" - it's an understandable simplification that causes pretty significant user pain. As regards PM/forums -- it doesn't matter to me either way. Here I am, nicely available. I also run a web site and have made myself pretty available (for a Microsoft developer, at least ) via my website and participation in online forums. I completely understand the simple route that CCleaner took, but - per my other other post, think it probably should be tweaked. You and I both want WMP and CCleaner to do the right thing for users here. We're all on the same page - all we need now is to work together.

I take it you are referring to the $hf_mig$ folder here? Has there been any thought given to tweaking the Hotfix Uninstaller cleaning to use this logic:* Hotfix Uninstaller Cleaner removes %windir%\$NTUninstallKB*$, %windir%\$NTUninstallQ*$, %windir%\$NTUninstall_KB*$ * IE Uninstaller Cleaner, WMP Uninstaller Cleaner option remove associated folders for those apps Or some such other differentiation method? I'm from the WMP team and have talked with the IE team about ways to short-circuit or break your detection logic, but all the options there just make me sad and think that's not the right thing for the customer. On the other hand, it's excruciating to users when a rollback/restore fails, so ... I really would like something to change for the better here. We should get on the same page so that people who don't want to be using the beta anymore aren't stuck with it accidentally. It's been way way way too easy for users to get accidentally broken by the Hotfix Uninstaller option.

It's not really their fault, though - unless you're referring to CCleaner. Everything should work fine until CCleaner deletes the uninstall/rollback files. Could you clarify the definition of "installed as hotfixes"? I think the confusion here is that CCleaner was (is?) deleting "%windir%\$NTUninstall*$" - that is not the definition of a hotfix, really - that's just an uninstall/restore folder naming convention. If you break apart an update.exe package, you can see how this is all set up, and the folder naming and folder deletion here is fairly arbitrary on both sides (MS and CCleaner). There's nothing fundamentally wrong with what MS is doing - the CCleaner analysis of what constituted a hotfix restore folder needed to be tightened. I'm interested in knowing what the specifics of the new change are. That's not particularly true. WMP11 offers two uninstall routes - the standard Update.exe restore, and a System Restore entry point. If you stomp on one, you should have the other unless you have also stomped on or turned that off too. I'm not sure what else you would want here - two methods is usually one method more than any other applications offer. There's a minor change or two pending on this area that will show up in a later build of WMP11 than you have now that will make things easier. But the absolute critical thing here is that we all need CCleaner to not delete the WMP11 restore files. I can "fix" this on my side by doing something a little non-standard, but it's really sad. I'm here to see what the CCleaner fix is and what can be done to ensure that everybody has the best possible solution here. I work (at MS) on the code in question here, and find this area fairly fascinating. I definitely want uninstall/rollback/restore to work for people. If the restore files are not deleted by CCleaner, this all should work fine. If not, that is a bug that should be fixed by the WMP team - if you post details at microsoft.public.windowsmedia.player , I'll generally take a look at it there (please bear in mind that I also have a bunch of development work to do, so can never respond instantly nor offer personal support) and see what data I can glean from uninstall failure reports. But if you're run the old version of CCleaner that deleted the WMP restore files, you pretty much are limited to System Restore as a rollback/restore method for your previous version. Or, as suggested elsewhere in regards to IE7b2, you can copy someone else's restore files and hope.