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I am trying to make my Wix Burn installer install two applications that use NSIS for their installer. Install works great. However, I want them to be removed when I uninstall my app (Permanent="no"). This is not so straightforward as I cannot call a different exe (the uninstall.exe that is created) from the UninstallCommand property on he ExePackage. Is there another way? Is there a simple command line argument that an NSIS installer can take to uninstall?

BowlerMonk
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    Your question is not much clear. What I've understood is installer A installs B and C (by executing their nsis setup silently?). But when A is uninstalled, B & C are not uninstalled, right? – foobar Oct 31 '13 at 09:06
  • True. In a Wix bundle (A), if I reference B and C properly, when I go to uninstall A, it will trigger the uninstall of B and C. However, it assumes you are playing with MSI's (or EXE's built from MSI's), which house their installer and uninstaller in the same file. NSIS doesn't work that way, apparently. – BowlerMonk Nov 01 '13 at 11:12

2 Answers2

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You would have to request the author of those installers to add support for that, NSIS does not support it by default.

I don't even think it makes any sense for installers to support it:

  1. The same program could be installed multiple times on the same machine (single user and all users?, multiple versions?)
  2. What if the installer does not write to the registry, how is it even supposed to find the original install?
Anders
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  • I was afraid that was going to be the clean answer to it. However, I think that one can make an argument against your two points. At least, that is what I am trying to do. From a user's perspective, if I install an app that requires certain prereq's, if I remove the app, I don't want the prereq's lingering on afterwards. I guess regardless of whether or not that is a common (or popular) thought, that is what we want in this case. – BowlerMonk Nov 01 '13 at 11:12
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Not what I would call a perfect answer, but a functional one, so I thought I'd share. Save someone providing a better option, I am creating custom actions to handle the uninstall. NSIS is consistent (by default, anyway) in their uninstall policy. Knowing what that is, I can plan for it. Messy, for sure, but seems sound.

BowlerMonk
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