CODEWITHSUNDEEP
installationwindows-installeruninstallation
Mahesh
Mahesh

Reputation: 410

How to delete application file from AppData\Roaming folder

I am using windows installer to create setup project.

How I can remove/delete application files from AppData\Roaming folder when application uninstalled.

I tried added a special folder and set DefaultLocaltion to [AppDataFolder] but it didn't working.

Do I need to do anything else?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 26534

Answers (2)

Christopher Painter
Christopher Painter

Reputation: 55571

I'd need to understand what you are trying to do to give you specific advice. In general what you are trying to do would be OK removing files from CommonAppDataFolder but not AppDataFolder as trying to clanup user data from multiple user profiles is not a best practice. Additionally trying to cleanup Roaming Profile User data is outright impossible because the other users aren't logged on.

You'll want to read:

Managing Roaming User Data Deployment Guide

Assuming you are trying to do what I think you are, you'll need a cleanup script / exe that you leave behind on uninstall and a custom action to write to the registry during uninstall ( MSI can't do this natively ) to call that script/EXE. You'll want to leverage the Active Setup trick as described here:

Using Active Setup to Repair User Settings

The way it'll work is your uninstall leaves the EXE and registry entry behind so that when a user logs on it's roaming data gets pulled down from the server to local and Active Setup realizes it hasn't run the script yet. The script runs (once) and the data is deleted. When the user logs off the data is replicated / deleted on the server. Then they log on again it doesn't run again.

Upvotes: 3

Bogdan Mitrache
Bogdan Mitrache

Reputation: 10993

By default Windows Installer does not remove the files created by your application, after the installation. To do that you need to either write your own custom action, that will run upon uninstall, or depending on the tool used for authoring the MSI, you can use built-in options for cleaning the application locations, as some tools have this support.

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions