Some folders and files are not removed upon complete uninstall

The behaviour described in the bug report is either by design, or would be far too complex/time-consuming to be changed

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tempdrive
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Some folders and files are not removed upon complete uninstall

Post by *tempdrive »

Apologies if this has been discussed before, I tried to search the forum topics for this, but have not came across anything explicit.

When uninstalling the program using the 4 check marks presented in the uninstall dialogue, there some folders and files are left behind once the uninstall completed:

\AppData\Roaming\GHISLER and files inside:

default.bar
default.br2
vertical.bar
vertical.br2


\AppData\Local\GHISLER and files inside:

tcDirFrq.txt

Should all this not be removed (on a folder level), considering that the 4th selection (removing configuration files) even mentions that it is meant for when the program is never (meant to be) used again?

This seems to be the case for older versions as well.

I am using Windows 10 21H2 and the x64 version of the application, if that matters, though I expect this behavior to be rather generic.
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ghisler(Author)
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Re: Some folders and files are not removed upon complete uninstall

Post by *ghisler(Author) »

The files in \AppData\Roaming\GHISLER will not be removed because the roaming profiles may be used on multiple computers.
Files in \AppData\Local\GHISLER should be removed, but tcDirFrq.txt could be considered as user-generated, so it's problematic.
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tempdrive
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Re: Some folders and files are not removed upon complete uninstall

Post by *tempdrive »

Thank you for your response and explanation.

In fact, I did not think about paths on shared drives, accessible across multiple system.
However, it does make little to no difference if you consider that selecting "Remove configuration files (wincmd.ini, wcx_ftp.ini)" will remove these files, which are in the very same location (\AppData\Roaming\GHISLER).
It does not matter if it is a local drive, a network drive managed by the user or a corporate environment managed by a 3rd party.
The roaming profile should belong to the very same person (user), so the outcome should be consistent in either scenarios and not be a surprise.

But either way, at this point (selecting the last check marks during the uninstallation) the "damage" (customized configuration being lost) is done anyway, and if another computer refers to the very same path, the files are recreated at the next start of the application without breaking anything (again, only customized settings will be lost, which is already happening with the current uninstallation procedure).

Ultimately you could do a drive locality check, I suppose, to determine whether the paths could be used elsewhere, but nevertheless, if the personalized configuration is removed by selecting the 4th check mark ("Remove configuration files (wincmd.ini, wcx_ftp.ini)") in the uninstallation options anyway, surely there is no need to keep anything stored in the APPDATA folders.
If this option is not selected, then the uninstallation process should happen at it does currently.

I hope this is sufficient to reconsider introducing further changes to the software removal process.
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Re: Some folders and files are not removed upon complete uninstall

Post by *ghisler(Author) »

However, it does make little to no difference if you consider that selecting "Remove configuration files (wincmd.ini, wcx_ftp.ini)" will remove these files, which are in the very same location (\AppData\Roaming\GHISLER).
It makes sense when the user explicitly has to activate the option.
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Re: Some folders and files are not removed upon complete uninstall

Post by *ghisler(Author) »

tcDirFrq.txt is removed now in beta 3 when you choose to uninstall also the settings. The other files will not be removed, though.
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