Summary

Synopsis

After running the uninstall of a MSI package using the Add/Remove Programs applet or selecting the Remove option from the Maintenance dialog, files installed with the package are still present on the machine.

Discussion

There are four common reasons why files may not be removed during uninstallation:

• The components to which these files belong are marked as permanent. (This is done through the Attributes column of the Component table.)

• None of the components to which these files belong have component GUIDs. (The value for the component in the ComponentId column of the Component table is NULL). Components without GUIDs are not managed by Windows Installer.

• If the key path of the component has a shared DLL refcount, the component will not be uninstalled.

• If the component is installed in the System folder and at the time of uninstallation there is an external shared DLL refcount for any one file in the component, the component will not be uninstalled.

Additional Information

For more information on uninstalled files, see the Windows Installer Help Library Removing Stranded Files.