Uninstalling files harvested through Files

[jb455]

Question

Hi, I have a Wix v5 project working where I gather all the dependencies for my app using the Files tag, like this:

[in Package.wxs]
<Package ...>
<?define MainOutputDir = $(var.SolutionDir)/ProjectDir/bin/$(var.Configuration)/net8.0-windows ?>
<Feature Id="App">
	<!-- Include all files & subdirectories from output folder -->
	<Files Include="$(var.MainOutputDir)/**" Directory="INSTALLFOLDER" >
	</Files>
</Feature>
</Package>

It works great for installing but I noticed that when I uninstall the app using the MSI all the files are left in the INSTALLFOLDER directory. How can I flag that these files need to be deleted when the app is uninstalled? It seems like this should be simple but I'm struggling to find a way to do it!

Thanks!

Open Source Maintenance Fee

• I (or an organization I'm a member of) pay the Open Source Maintenance Fee by sponsoring the wixtoolset project because I support the maintainers.

[robmen]

It should just work. There is something else going awry. A verbose log file will show you why the files were not scheduled to be removed.

[jb455]

Hi, thanks for your reply! Just been able to look at this again.
I've managed to resolve this now, I will report my findings in case it's useful to others.
So I uninstalled with the verbose log msiexec /x "setup.msi" /lv msi.log and the only error I could see was Error 2911: Could not remove the folder C:\Config.Msi\. which appears to not be an actual error (see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/77782058/error-2911-could-not-remove-the-folder-c-config-msi). The only other thing I could see which seemed a bit suspect was ~150 lines of Disallowing uninstallation of component: {62B1ECAA-D5EA-43C8-BE7E-1A1C32C8CE5A} since another client exists with different GUIDs. Turns out that indicates a past failed installation and running the below powershell script (from here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/48787804/3683178) cleaned up the registry and it now uninstalls cleanly. Thanks!

$productName = "Path\\YourProductName"  # this should basically match against your previous
# installation path. Make sure that you don't mess with other components used 
# by any other MSI package

$components = Get-ChildItem -Path HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\
$count = 0

foreach ($c in $components) 
{
    foreach($p in $c.Property)
    {
        $propValue = (Get-ItemProperty "Registry::$($c.Name)" -Name "$($p)")."$($p)"
        if ($propValue -match $productName) 
        {
            Write-Output $propValue
            $count++
            Remove-Item "Registry::$($c.Name)" -Recurse
        }
    }
}

Write-Host "$($count) key(s) removed"