Recommended way to uninstall a file that was configured as "Permanent" once

Iku Iwasa 0 Reputation points
2024-02-29T01:41:27.2166667+00:00

I would like to know the officially recommended solution for the following uninstallation issue.

When creating an installer setup project in Visual Studio with Installer Projects extension, one can configure Permanent option to True for each installable file.

Once the installer is installed, changing Permanent option to False does not effect since the Permanent configuration is stored in the OS registry and not removed by uninstall.

The only solution I can find is to remove the following registry value of the component ID of the relevant file.

  • Registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\<Component GUID>
  • Registry value: 00000000000000000000000000000000

I would like to know whether the above is officially recommended solution, or there are any other recommended ones for the issue.

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  1. Tianyu Sun-MSFT 27,356 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor
    2024-02-29T06:36:57.35+00:00

    Hello @Iku Iwasa,

    Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

    No recommended solutions for uninstalling a file that was configured as "Permanent" once.

    As this old document: Permanent Property says:

    The expected behavior is that uninstalling an application should remove everything that was installed by the application.

    Make sure that you have a good reason before settings the Permanent property to True.

    Normally it’s not suggested to modify the Registry keys, in case you set wrongly for the Permanent option and installed the application, you may have to modify the Registry keys. Backing up the Registry before modifying it is recommended.

    BTW, I helped to add the Windows tag, perhaps, some tools from Windows can better uninstall it and avoid modifying the Registry.

    Have a nice day.

    Best Regards,

    Tianyu

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