I am in a small bind. The program in question can be installed in the program files directory (64bit) or X86 path. The program is already installed in over 200 machines. I am fairly certain the default install path was X86 as that's the default. I am not certain and must cover both scenarios. The original sys admin that installed this didn't use an .msi so I'm left with what I've found as ""C:\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information{78AC336D-25F6-4916-A711-2EA2F69E0319}\setup.exe" as the command provided by one utility to remotely uninstall said application I found. Didn't work and I cannot attempt to push this out in hopes it'll work.
Given this problem, is there a way to uninstall this program via a script that would check both program files and X86 paths and uninstall depending on location? OR, is there a script that will just flat out uninstall the program regardless without the concern for the X86/program original install location. I just need to uninstall it period across all of these machines. The install .bat is good to go. What I cannot do is just get window to uninstall X application via a script for 32 or 64 bit machines.
I've tried MsiExec.exe /X{78AC336D-25F6-4916-A711-2EA2F69E0319} /quiet with no go. I can try to install the .msi this time around but am lost and my knowledge is limited with scripting or any uninstall scripts for telling "end users" without confusing them to just click here. I could tell them to go to control panel, etc..but they'll be lost....typical.
Any ideas on how to script this uninstall given it wasn't an original .msi and I am not sure how to get something working? I'm open to anything. I have two days to get this fixed and I'm in panic mode...
Any ideas or help on code would be greatly appreciated.
Regards, Brian
This question is related to
windows-7
batch-file
windows-xp
uninstallation
wmic can call an uninstaller. I haven't tried this, but I think it might work.
wmic /node:computername /user:adminuser /password:password product where name="name of application" call uninstall
If you don't know exactly what the program calls itself, do
wmic product get name | sort
and look for it. You can also uninstall using SQL-ish wildcards.
wmic /node:computername /user:adminuser /password:password product where "name like '%j2se%'" call uninstall
... for example would perform a case-insensitive search for *j2se* and uninstall "J2SE Runtime Environment 5.0 Update 12". (Note that in the example above, %j2se% is not an environment variable, but simply the word "j2se" with a SQL-ish wildcard on each end. If your search string could conflict with an environment or script variable, use double percents to specify literal percent signs, like %%j2se%%.)
If wmic prompts for y/n confirmation before completing the uninstall, try this:
echo y | wmic /node:computername /user:adminuser /password:password product where name="whatever" call uninstall
... to pass a y to it before it even asks.
I haven't tested this, but it's worth a shot anyway. If it works on one computer, then you can just loop through a text file containing all the computer names within your organization using a for loop, or put it in a domain policy logon script.
Assuming you're dealing with Windows 7 x64 and something that was previously installed with some sort of an installer, you can open regedit and search the keys under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
(which references 32-bit programs) for part of the name of the program, or
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
(if it actually was a 64-bit program).
If you find something that matches your program in one of those, the contents of UninstallString in that key usually give you the exact command you are looking for (that you can run in a script).
If you don't find anything relevant in those registry locations, then it may have been "installed" by unzipping a file. Because you mentioned removing it by the Control Panel, I gather this likely isn't then case; if it's in the list of programs there, it should be in one of the registry keys I mentioned.
Then in a .bat script you can do
if exist "c:\program files\whatever\program.exe" (place UninstallString contents here)
if exist "c:\program files (x86)\whatever\program.exe" (place UninstallString contents here)
In my experience, to use wmic in a script, you need to get the nested quoting right:
wmic product where "name = 'Windows Azure Authoring Tools - v2.3'" call uninstall /nointeractive
quoting both the query and the name. But wmic will only uninstall things installed via windows installer.
Source: Stackoverflow.com