Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Robert Hurlbut — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 04:29:00 GMT

Alan -- thank you for this tip. I recently came across this problem myself and found the same solution, but I wasn't sure if it was a "kosher" operation. Thank you for verifying my suspicions from a Fusion team member.

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Jeff Key — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 04:53:00 GMT

Ditto, thanks.

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Frans Bouma — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 09:30:00 GMT

Isn't it so that MSI is NOT the right choice for this because of this odd bug? IMHO when using MSI (it's easy to use, so why not use it) and you want to install to the GAC: shell out and run gacutil.exe to install the assembly. Requires more work, but you can be sure it will uninstall.

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Tomas Restrepo — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 11:06:00 GMT

Actually, the cause is not so unknown at all! One of our coworkers discovered this problem was consistently triggered by the MSN Messenger 6.0 installation!

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Rick Watson — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 15:36:00 GMT

We've reproduced the MSN Messenger behavior here at our company.

I've uninstalled that and installed Trillian instead [which can access MSN Messenger contacts]

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Alan Shi — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 17:43:00 GMT

Thanks for all the comments. I'll take the information you've provided about MSN Messenger 6.0 creating the corrupt MSI registry problem to the Windows Installer team so we can investigate further.

Frans, MSI is definitely the recommended way to install your assemblies (particularly in retail environments). The bug being described is a little orthogonal to choosing MSI as an installer; even if you shell out to gacutil.exe to install, doesn't guarantee the ability to uninstall (because the bug affects all uninstalls).

I'll be sure to let you all know when we get more information on this issue.

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Jason Aubrey — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 21:03:00 GMT

I have this same problem but both keys contain no values...

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Jason Aubrey — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 22:09:00 GMT

It seems that (in Win2KPro) executing the following froma commandline does the trick: rd /s <Assembly Name>

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Jason Aubrey — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 22:12:00 GMT

Maybe I should clarify... the "rd /s <Assembly Name>" should be executed from C:\WINNT\assembly\GAC

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

george — Tue, 17 Feb 2004 09:29:00 GMT

I would appear to have the same problem but when I check the registry keys mentioned they are empty. I then attempted to manually delete the keys from a dos box I am unable to delete the directory. When I delve down into the directory I finally get to the actual DLL that has been installed, and it would appear that this file is locked in some way. Any thoughts??

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

george — Tue, 17 Feb 2004 10:09:00 GMT

Success.

After a restart and deleting each file manually I was able to remove the files.

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Amit Ugane — Thu, 19 Feb 2004 04:58:00 GMT

Thanks It Works Really Good Solution

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Amit Ugane — Thu, 19 Feb 2004 04:59:00 GMT

Success

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Jerry Dennany — Tue, 02 Mar 2004 04:23:00 GMT

Alan - Thanks for this - I had this problem, and your advice was very helpful.

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Martin LL — Thu, 25 Mar 2004 15:06:00 GMT

My registry keys where empty, so i have to delete the files manualy... in case someone is wondering which files... i deleted all files in c:\[Windows dir]\assembly\gac\[assembly name].

To delete all this i have to use DOS...

Thanxs Alan.

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Kevin Keenoy — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 14:46:00 GMT

I have been having the same problem and have not been able to fix it with the methods above. Firstly, can I check that I've tried the right thing: the [HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Installer\Assemblies\Global] key does not exist on my machine (there is no "Installer" in the HKCU\Software\Microsoft... part of the registry); the [HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Assemblies\Global] does, and has a whole bunch of stuff that appears to be the contents of the GAC. I assume that I shouldn't delete all of these values (?), but at the top of the list is the key:

<no name> : REG_MULTI_SZ : ...

This had a value in it, which I have now deleted in accordance with the advice here. Is that right? Or does "clear the default value" mean I should delete the key altogether (and not just the value there)? Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I'm new to fiddling with the registry...

Secondly, deleting the files manually doesn't seem to be a good solution - for some reason I need to reboot before I can re-install the assembly (I'm currently developing an assembly so need to uninstall and then reinstall a newer version quite often), and then the same problem occurs again next time so I again have to manually delete, re-boot and re-install each time I want to test a new version of my assembly. Does uninstalling MSN Messenger fix the problem permanently?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give!

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Alan Shi — Mon, 29 Mar 2004 01:52:00 GMT

Kevin, the very first entry under that registry key is what you want to delete. If you're using regedit, it should have a name of "(Default)" and the value should have no value (regedit displays this as "(value not set)".

Deleting files manually from the GAC is definitely not recommended.

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Kevin Keenoy — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 06:52:00 GMT

Great - many thanks for your advice, Alan. Deleting the entire entry (not just the value) seems to have worked a treat.

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Phil Bishop — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 15:31:00 GMT

DUDE i'm not worthy..thank you so much for solving my problem also...

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Vlad — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 20:55:00 GMT

Thx! "Global" key had a default value of REG_MULTI_SZ set to smth like "{Ja9`qF7V@7x@e9P@...". I just uninstalled MSN 6.1. Now its type is REG_SZ, it's empty and gacutil.exe works fine.

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Mario Hernández — Fri, 02 Apr 2004 17:19:00 GMT

Alan!! You have no idea how much I owe you with this tip!!!! Thank youy very much!!!. People, you have to DELETE the key, not just clear the value, ok??

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Celia — Mon, 10 May 2004 19:17:00 GMT

Alan, I know you heard many "Thanks" already. But this is the exact problem I have and your article solved it in 30 seconds. Thank you!!

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

GB — Mon, 17 May 2004 19:15:00 GMT

One more to add to the "Thanks List" :)

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Josephina — Tue, 18 May 2004 21:01:00 GMT

Alan, you the man! thanks Mario - i cleared first then deleted thank to you.

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Mario Hernández — Tue, 18 May 2004 21:20:00 GMT

Hi Alan, ... and MSN Messenger Development Team don't fix this problem yet at version 6.2. :S

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

danielle — Sun, 30 May 2004 00:28:00 GMT

i want my msn unstalled please!!!

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

danielle — Sun, 30 May 2004 00:28:00 GMT

i want my msn unstalled please!!!

NUnit and

Impersonation Failure — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 00:32:00 GMT

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Hiren Joshi — Mon, 14 Jun 2004 19:52:00 GMT

You can go to c:\winnt\assembly\GAC\ and remove your folder your_dll without_extension with rmdir folder name /s/q to get rid of the problem.

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Poli!!!!! — Tue, 15 Jun 2004 19:27:00 GMT

Thks!!!!!
It really worked!!!!!!!

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Alan Shi — Sat, 19 Jun 2004 00:59:00 GMT

Addressing Hiren's comment, I'll repeat my recommendation again: simply deleting the directory by hand is not the right solution.

For everyone interested, we've tracked down this problem to any MSI that installs native winsxs assemblies using the built-in MSI support. This ends up causing a corruption on pre-XP systems. There will be a fix in MSI3.0, and we're also looking at whether a MSI2.0 patch for this is feasible.

Unable to delete from the GAC

Carr .Text Blog — Tue, 29 Jun 2004 19:56:00 GMT

Unable to delete from the GAC

Carr .Text Blog — Tue, 29 Jun 2004 19:59:00 GMT

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

beesman — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 12:58:00 GMT

My God, Thank you for your help,

Comrade Jason Aubrey

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Paul — Wed, 07 Jul 2004 02:21:00 GMT

"Addressing Hiren's comment, I'll repeat my recommendation again: simply deleting the directory by hand is not the right solution."

Why not? It seems to achieve the desired effect with the least amount of effort.

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Alan Shi — Wed, 07 Jul 2004 02:34:00 GMT

Do you uninstall programs by just deleting the files under \program files? Sure, it might look like that works, but it almost certainly doesn't do what you really want.

There is state that the system can maintain associated with the contents of the GAC. Going through an API ensures the necessary state is consistent with the contents of the store.

The obvious example of problems today is traced reference counts being leaked. In future versions, the state of the store is used to determine coherency information with native images. Policy and other state will also be tracked in a similar way.

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Jasper... — Wed, 07 Jul 2004 07:18:00 GMT

So deleting the directory is not "right"? What problems could this cause?

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

B Z — Mon, 26 Jul 2004 21:52:00 GMT

Thank you very much. This has been bothering me for a while and has been frustrating. I did what Alan suggested and it works!!!!!!!!!!

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Saurabh Kumar — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 06:31:00 GMT

I do not see the path -

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Installer\Assemblies\Global

on my NT 2000 machine.

Where should i search for \Assemblies\Global ? to remove the Assembly reference.

re: Why can't I uninstall my assembly?

Marc Loy — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 14:23:00 GMT

You safe my night.
Just delete the (default) key.

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