Today was the 2nd time I managed to cause a machine at work to not be able to uninstall the project I've been working on.
During installation tests I "accidentally" deleted part of the registry and resulting in not being able to uninstall the MSI (because it wasn't there) and not being able to install a new version of the project ("project already exist") - AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I've tried using some of the uninstall tools (i.e. Revo Uninstaller) and even considered (briefly) re-writing part of the registry.
Luckily for me Before I could cause more damage I came across a blog post by Aaron Stebner - Trick for setup developers - how to remove a setup package with a known uninstall bug.
I've tried the first option and run "msiexec.exe /fvecmus my_product.msi" to Forcibly install a fixed version of the MSI and presto my machine was usable again.
Labels: Tips and Tricks