Uninstall fails to complete successfully on Windows 10 20H2 with Open-Shell 4.4.170

[thetreythomas]

Describe the bug

Windows 10 20H2
Open-Shell 4.4.170, and then 4.4.188

I was interested in checking Open-Shell out so I installed it without any issues. When I tried to uninstall it, it gives multiple errors and fails to uninstall. With 4.4.170, it would get to this point and never go any further:

Clicking on Retry would just put it in this loop and come right back to the same message. When you hit Cancel, it would then display the below:

Clicking on Ok then shows this:

At this point, it won't play nice until you restart Windows. After Windows is restarted, you lost the ability to try uninstalling again as it was removed from "Programs and Features" when first trying to uninstall. So, going through another install it detects something was wrong with the previous uninstall, and it's able to clean up things and do another install.

But when trying to uninstall again, the exact same thing happens again. I tried using the latest nightly build that would download for me, which was 4.4.188. I run into pretty much the exact same thing. This time, instead of hanging up where the UI says 1 second remaining, the UI now says "Removing Shortcuts". Going through the Cancel and Ok buttons brings very similar error messages.

With 4.4.188:

And then...

And then...

When the uninstall fails, like I mentioned it removes the entry from "Programs and Features", but it leaves everything else.

Registry Items:

Files and Folders:

The one thing I am wondering about deals with how I get Administrator Rights on this system. This is my work system, so it has various IT tools on it. I have to use a utility to request Admin rights, which does what it does and then makes me log out and then back in. I have installed many, many applications and to this day I have never had issues with how this process works. Just putting this out there in case I did finally run into some weird issue with this.

Area of issue

Installation/Other

To reproduce

Steps listed above.

Expected behavior

For Open-Shell to uninstall successfully with no errors.

Open-Shell version

4.4.170

Windows version

Windows 10 20H2 (OS Build 19042.2604)

Additional context

No response

[ge0rdi]

Never saw such issues.
Open-Shell uses standard MSI for installation/uninstallation.
Its kind of weird. I'd guess there is something odd in your system ...

[thetreythomas]

@ge0rdi Any ideas on what the Open-Shell installer is having a problem cleaning up?

When the uninstall fails and I run the installer again, it performs what looks like an uninstall before it tries this new install. How is this uninstall different than actually running the Uninstaller? It's able to complete that every time.

Are there any logs we can look at?

Looking through your bugs, I saw one issue someone had with Open-Shell and Microsoft PowerToys. I did have PowerToys installed before installing Open-Shell.
--> #736

The only other utility that I have installed is Greenshot.

If I end up having to use REVO to remove those registry entires and left-over files, is there anything else I need to worrry about cleaning up manually? Like unregistering the shell object? I looked on your Wiki and through the Github tickets, but I couldn't find anything on the exact steps to perform a manual uninstall.

[thetreythomas]

@ge0rdi - Would it be possible to get the manual uninstall steps?

Or add it to your Wiki FAQ section?
https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu/wiki/FAQ#what-is-the-safest-way-to-uninstall-open-shell

[ge0rdi]

When the uninstall fails and I run the installer again, it performs what looks like an uninstall before it tries this new install. How is this uninstall different than actually running the Uninstaller? It's able to complete that every time.

That's interesting, I'd say MSI installer just does normal uninstall of previous version and then installs new one.
So if uninstall succeeds here, I don't get why it throws some error when running alone.

Are there any logs we can look at?

You can try this:

First install latest version (189) using:
OpenShellSetup_4_4_189.exe /lvx* install.log

It should install new product over what you have and create install.log log file.
Maybe also reboot your machine after this to be sure.

Then extract MSI package from installer:
OpenShellSetup_4_4_189.exe extract64

And use it to uninstall Open-Shell:
msiexec /x OpenShellSetup64_4_4_189.msi /lvx* uninstall.log

It should also create uninstall.log file.

Attach both log files here.

[triangledS]

Fixed exact issue by leaving uninstaller on "removing shortcuts" for a few minutes.