On Wednesday, May 4, 2011, 17:55:23, RS wrote: > If I understand your reasoning properly we should never ever uninstall > any software nor remove any entries from register.
No, you don't. It's perfectly possible to remove global registry entries and program files once they're not needed anymore. > I might be mistaken but it's rather not a common approach. It actually is. Office for example behaves in the same way. > The software 'knows' what it modifies and where or at least should be > able to scan some files (ex: registry file) for it's own entries. The software does, but the uninstaller doesn't, because the uninstaller has no reliable way to access this data (normal programs have no way of affecting the global state, and the uninstallers have no reliable access to the local state). > Database on HDD > If TB! creates data folder (can be created at a folder appointed by > user not necessarily at user profile's directory) it exactly knows > where it is so can should be able to delete it or at least let user > know that it's left there. In my opinion it's quite heavy issue... > Even if it's shared between multiple computers (or network share) it > can operate on it so can remove it as well - rights for that are > granted on OS level. Windows supports both remote and roaming profiles. If a profile is roaming or remote, it's entirely possible that the (un)installer has no privileges to access it (because it's very possible that the profile isn't even loaded on local computer at the time the uninstaller is running - and even if it is, if the uninstaller is running as a different user, it can't easily access files that don't belong to that user). > Entries in Registry > Same as above - I mean for instance a whole group called RIT with > subgroups 'Spell Check' and 'The Bat!' - it's all left there in > the registry after uninstall and it's not allowing you to install a > clean copy of TB! - because you always get a e-mail box you just tried > to remove. Exactly - same as above. User registry is just a database file in the profile directory, so similar rules of access apply (except that registry imposes some additional restrictions). > There are much more TB!'s entries in the register than mentioned > above, for instance in Installer / TBVars (and subgroups) / The Bat! > mailto (and subgroups) / .... and so on. Anything you see under HKEY_CURRENT_USER is not available to the uninstaller - only entries in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE are. Also, it's registry, not register. > For instance if somehow data file gets corrupted and TB! can't > properly start with that file, even if you uninstall your software and > install it again it won't run because of all this leftovers after > previous uninstall. Something is not right here... If a file gets corrupted in such way that it prevents the program from running, that's a bug in the program. If this is a user-specific file, a workaround is to remove that file. -- < Jernej Simončič ><><><><>< http://eternallybored.org/ > [ The Bat! 5.0.10 on Windows 7 6.1.7601.Service Pack 1 ] Anticipated events never live up to expectations. -- Levy's Second Law of the Disillusionment of the True Liberal ________________________________________________________ Current beta is 5.0.12.1 | 'Using TBBETA' information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
