This browser is no longer supported.
Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(230.39999999999998, 16%, 32%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EII%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
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.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\<Component GUID>00000000000000000000000000000000I would like to know whether the above is officially recommended solution, or there are any other recommended ones for the issue.
This comment has been deleted due to a violation of our Code of Conduct. The comment was manually reported or identified through automated detection before action was taken. Please refer to our Code of Conduct for more information.
I don't know of an "officially recommended solution" to remove a component that was installed with the permanent attribute. The installer docs at Component Table describe msidbComponentAttributesPermanent as "If this bit is set, the installer does not remove the component during an uninstall. The installer registers an extra system client for the component in the Windows Installer registry settings."
Also, take a look at this SO post - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24242004/wix-revert-permanent-component-to-not-permanent-state So it seems to me that you cannot avoid editing the registry if you want to remove the component.
Also, take a look at Microsoft's Removing Stranded Files. Disappointingly, it identifies potential causes but offers no solutions.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(140.8, 78%, 23%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3ETS%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
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
If the answer is the right solution, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".
Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.
@Tianyu Sun-MSFT Thank you for the reply!
It is unfortunate there is no standard way to solve this...
Alternative workaround for the issue I could imagine is to change the component GUID of the file.
However, there seems no explicit way to change the component GUID by Visual Studio Installer Projects.
There are some options to change the component GUID, but it is difficult to adopt one of them actually.
(1) Change UpgradeCode of the installer.
(2) Change the path (KeyPath) of the file.
Any suggestion?
If you have already uninstalled the package and the file is orphaned you can use an .msi file that contains the same installed product (and component ids) after setting the "permanent" property to false for the file in question when the .msi is created. After reinstalling the package, delete the previously mentioned component key and value from the registry. Then when you uninstall the package the target file should be uninstalled also. That was the result from my own quick and dirty test.