Uninstall magic: MSIZap and MSIInv

re: Uninstall magic: MSIZap and MSIInv

aweiker — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 15:26:21 GMT

Does MsiZap actually delete the files, or just make it look like they are no longer there?

re: Uninstall magic: MSIZap and MSIInv

Mike Gunderloy — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 16:36:25 GMT

The question is, why are you pointing to some wacky third-party site for that stuff? Those are actual Microsoft utilities, which means those are probably illegal redistributions and likely out of date. The official home for the MSI utilities is the Windows Installer components part of the Platform SDK, Web install starts from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=A55B6B43-E24F-4EA3-A93E-40C0EC4F68E5&displaylang=en . Yeah, the little zips might be more convenient, but I'd rather trust the current live distribution.

re: Uninstall magic: MSIZap and MSIInv

BradA — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 16:49:02 GMT

aweiker - What this does it kick off the uninstaller which will remove the bits from the machine.

Mike - this site is tester's on the VS setup team... You are right we need to get these tools on an offical MS site, but I didn't want to wait for that to get the information out to customers.
That said, you are right, these are unsupported, use at your own risk.

re: Uninstall magic: MSIZap and MSIInv

HK — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 17:26:38 GMT

I tried running the msiinv.exe.It detected all the installations on my machine but the exe just closed after running so how to get to seeing the results or how do i save the results to a text file ??

re: Uninstall magic: MSIZap and MSIInv

Miha Markic — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 17:27:52 GMT

Or even better, use a virtual machine such as VMWare. Then you won't have any such problems :-)

re: Uninstall magic: MSIZap and MSIInv

Erv Walter — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 17:44:15 GMT

MSIZap is pretty awesome. You can also get it from here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290301

In this form, it comes with a simple GUI that shows the installed MSI packages and lets you choose which one to remove (making the process a little easier). It's still calling MSIZap under the covers, and MSIZap is there if you want to call it from commandline from time to time.

re: Uninstall magic: MSIZap and MSIInv

Andrei — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 18:12:10 GMT

Sounds to me like msizap does the same thing as msiexec /x CLSID.

re: Uninstall magic: MSIZap and MSIInv

Erv Walter — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 18:55:14 GMT

Actually, msizap does NOT remove any of the files or registry entries, etc that were added by the installation. It only cleans out the windows installer's internal database of information so that it LOOKS to windows installer as if things have been uninstalled, but the files are left on the hard drive (and need to be cleaned up by hand).

It's useful when uninstall is broken (e.g. you get partway through uninstall and for some reason, the uninstall fails and rollsback to the installed state).

If all you need to do is uninstall something that isn't in add/remove programs for some reason, then yes msiexec /x is a better approach.

Link Listing - June 26, 2005

Christopher Steen — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 06:39:57 GMT

Link Listing - June 26, 2005

Geek Notes 2005-07-14

Geek Noise — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 06:58:04 GMT

Geek Notes 2005-07-14

Geek Noise — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 06:58:05 GMT

re: Uninstall magic: MSIZap and MSIInv

PaulJ — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 18:10:31 GMT

'msiexec /x CLSID' is not the same as 'msizap CLSID'

'msiexec /x CLSID' tells Windows Installer to uninstall the application associated with CLSID.
This is the same as hitting Remove in Add/Remove programs.

'msizap CLSID' simply removes the configuration information for the application from the registry. Windows installer will now be ignorant of any earlier installation of the application.

MSIZap is not Uninstall

Heath Stewart's Blog — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:36:49 GMT

The tool msizap.exe that is available in the Windows SDK and elsewhere on the web (remember to always

MsiZAP and MsiInv

IWebThereforeIAm — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 14:06:24 GMT

MsiZAP and MsiInv Tools for MSI (Windows installer application)...