Silent MSI uninstall of GUIDs that doesn't exist

Question

I am attempting to implement a quiet uninstall of my application. This works great if the application is actually installed, but when it is not the user receives an error message and must click OK to continue.

My command:

MSIEXEC.EXE /qb /L* "%LOGDIR%\myuninstaller.log" /x{GUID}

The problem is that I need to clean up all old versions of the app in a script I deploy in AD. I don't know what version is installed on what computer, and making the script determine so first is difficult.

How can I make MSIEXEC NOT complain about uninstalling GUID's that don't exist?

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 22 '11 at 10:08

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Found the answer on http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc759262(WS.10).aspx#BKMK_SetUI

It seems I need to use /qn instead of /qb.

answered Feb 22 '11 at 10:08

Tedd Hansen

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You have an answer, but do read this: http://serverfault.com/a/596519/20599. It is useful to have alternate ways to deal with something as fundamental as deployment. Also check the other link: http://stackoverflow.com/a/1055933/129130 for a whole bunch of different ways to invoke uninstalls. – Stein Åsmul Jun 20 '14 at 23:15
I don't quite get it, it still returns error (code 1605), how is it a solution? (I mean If you're ignoring error codes in the first place, everything is 'silent' anyways) – illegal-immigrant Feb 17 '16 at 01:47

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 22 '11 at 10:25

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If all your apps have proper GUID keys in "KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall" you could also do something like this:

reg query HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{GUID} >NUL 2>NUL || MSIEXEC.EXE /qb /L* "%LOGDIR%\myuninstaller.log" /x{GUID}

This would only start msiexec.exe if the key is present (and would be a bit more efficient than firing msiexec.exe on nonexistent GUIDs with /qn).

answered Feb 22 '11 at 10:25

Flavio

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Nice. Mine works better, but I learned something new here and your method is more generic so I'm setting this as the answer. – Tedd Hansen Feb 25 '11 at 10:53

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 13 '14 at 11:59

For my case it works with: (notice the && operator)

reg query HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{GUID} >NUL 2>NUL && MSIEXEC.EXE /qf /L* "%LOGDIR%\myuninstaller.log" /x{GUID}

according to this link http://www.robvanderwoude.com/condexec.php, the subsequent command (msiexec.exe) will only be executed if first command executed successfuly (without error result). You can try to test each command separately

reg query HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{GUID} >C:\registrycheck.log

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

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Even though you have an accepted answer, please do check out this post from serverfault.com: Is it possible to disable msiexec help GUI?. There are many ways to uninstall an MSI via automation so you don't have to deal with msiexec.exe at all.

Perhaps this Uninstalling an MSI file from the command line without using msiexec is also useful.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

Community

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answered Jun 13 '14 at 13:30

Stein Åsmul

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Silent MSI uninstall of GUIDs that doesn't exist

4 Answers4