Uninstaller doesn't remove everything

[grossetti]

Hello everyone,

I have created an installer that changes the $INSTALL_PATH
(/Users/<username>/MyApp) and installs stuff in 3 directories :

$INSTALL_PATH
/Users/<username>/Library/LaunchAgents
/Applications/MyApp

it then makes 2 files exectuable in the /Applications/MyApp directory.

When I uninstall, the $INSTALL_PATH is removed, the stuff in
/Users/<username>/Library/LaunchAgents is also removed, the exec bit is
removed from the files in /Applications/MyApp but the directory itself
is not removed. Why is this so?

Thank you,
Gabriel

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[Earl Hood]

On October 12, 2009 at 11:14, Gabriel Rossetti wrote:

> When I uninstall, the $INSTALL_PATH is removed, the stuff in
> /Users/<username>/Library/LaunchAgents is also removed, the exec bit is
> removed from the files in /Applications/MyApp but the directory itself
> is not removed. Why is this so?

I would guess that the Windows OS still has a handle on the
directory or some file under the directory, so any deletion
operations will fail.

One reason this may occur is that uninstaller is normally placed
under $INSTALL_PATH, so when it is executing, the windows OS has an
open handler to the uninstaller file, creating an implicit "lock"
on the file (*nix systems do not do this).  Therefore, the directory
itself cannot be removed until after the uninstaller has exited.

This behavior is an annoyance to those familiar with *nix
behavior, and it makes some operations a pain to do.
This behavior of Windows is one reason why system reboots
may be required when performing software updates since the
updater program cannot replace files that have open handles
on it.

--ewh

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[grossetti]

Earl Hood wrote:

> On October 12, 2009 at 11:14, Gabriel Rossetti wrote:
>
>  
>> When I uninstall, the $INSTALL_PATH is removed, the stuff in
>> /Users/<username>/Library/LaunchAgents is also removed, the exec bit is
>> removed from the files in /Applications/MyApp but the directory itself
>> is not removed. Why is this so?
>>    
>
> I would guess that the Windows OS still has a handle on the
> directory or some file under the directory, so any deletion
> operations will fail.
>
> One reason this may occur is that uninstaller is normally placed
> under $INSTALL_PATH, so when it is executing, the windows OS has an
> open handler to the uninstaller file, creating an implicit "lock"
> on the file (*nix systems do not do this).  Therefore, the directory
> itself cannot be removed until after the uninstaller has exited.
>
> This behavior is an annoyance to those familiar with *nix
> behavior, and it makes some operations a pain to do.
> This behavior of Windows is one reason why system reboots
> may be required when performing software updates since the
> updater program cannot replace files that have open handles
> on it.
>
> --ewh
>  

Hello Earl,

thanks for your answer, I forgot to mention that this was happening on
Mac OS X, a unix-based system. Also, it is not the
$INSTALL_PATH (/Users/<username>/MyApp) that is posing problems but the
directory under /Applications. As
stated in my original msg, I also have other files in a directory not
under $INSTALL_PATH and they get deleted, but
maybe that is due to the fact that they are just files and not a directory.

Gabriel



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