Should we handle this?

[Tom Spear]

On 4/24/07, Tom Spear <speeddymon at gmail.com> wrote:
> While testing my uninstaller patch, I ran into the issue that was a
> problem in Win95, where the uninstaller did not handle deletion of
> it's uninstall registry key.  What I did was install a program that I
> new put it's registry key under HKLM.  Then I copied that key to HKCU.
>  Then I installed a program that I knew put its key under HKCU and
> copied that key to HKLM.  Then I uninstalled each one with the copied
> key.
>
> The program's uninstaller removed the key that it was instructed to
> take out, but left the other one behind.
>
> My question is this.  If an uninstaller (outside of my test
> environment) does not remove it's registry key before the process
> exits, should our uninstaller check for that after the process exits,
> and go ahead and remove the key, or should we make the user press the
> uninstall button again and ask them if they want to remove the key
> (like we already do, in the event they manually removed the program,
> by deleting the folder)?
>
Well I just did my test scenario on Windows.  I copied the uninstall
key for WinRAR over to HKCU, and ran the uninstall from the entry that
was located there.  As I expected, the uninstall key from HKLM was
removed.  However, Windows' Add/Remove control panel did not catch
that the uninstall entry that I ran was not removed, and so it stayed
there.  I assume, that since we are trying to mimic Windows, we should
not remove an uninstall entry if the uninstaller did not remove it,
however I have made the patch (separately from my other uninstaller
patch).  I've gone ahead and posted it here, in case anyone wants to
comment on whether they think it should go in or not.

Note though, that this patch requires my other uninstaller patch,
which I will post to wine-patches in a minute.

-- 
Thanks

Tom

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