Automating Uninstallation of NI Software

[Munna232]

Hello all,

I need small help. Please help me.

With reference to below link, I want to uninstall specific software from NI installation directory.

But it is not working.

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/33434B8E1786A142862574330079237E

I used following command with System Exec.vi but there is no response.

C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\Shared\NIUninstaller\uninst.exe /qb /ForceDependents /x "NIMax.exe"

Please let me know if anyone have idea.

[Bob_Schor]

I would do the uninstall from the Windows Control Panel, myself ...   It seems to me that Program Installation and Uninstallation are, at best, "Black Arts" that are well above my skill set, and hence dangerous things with which to tinker.  In the case of LabVIEW, there are many routines that are inter-related in complex ways, so I would be very nervous about trying to remove one piece, especially something as "connected" as MAX.

Bob Schor

[Sam_Sharp]

Are you using the right name? From the help it says that product name is "the name displayed in the 'products' column of the user interface" - which for MAX on my system is "NI Measurement & Automation Explorer 14.5.0" (note the version number!).

Do you get any information about the failure from the error code / output from the System Exec VI?

[Jacobson-ni]

---

@Bob_Schor wrote:

I would do the uninstall from the Windows Control Panel, myself ...   It seems to me that Program Installation and Uninstallation are, at best, "Black Arts" that are well above my skill set, and hence dangerous things with which to tinker.  In the case of LabVIEW, there are many routines that are inter-related in complex ways, so I would be very nervous about trying to remove one piece, especially something as "connected" as MAX.

Bob Schor

---

I would very much agree with Bob.  There are many services and tasks in other applications that may not work correctly if you just uninstall MAX.

What exactly are you trying to uninstall from your computer and why do you only want that specific component?  Additionally, why do you not want to go through the control panel?

[Munna232]

I deployed my application into client PCs (around 50). At that time I added NI MAX to my application but we are not using it.

So, I want to delete that exe in my next versions.

So, I’m planning to add this function to my next versions to uninstall NI MAX automatically but it is not working.

We can uninstall from “Control Panel” but we don’t have admin rights & again we need to inform everyone.

If we can add this function in my new installer, we will get admin rights from Admin for only this exe. So that user no need to think about anything.

Everything will be in one package.

[Munna232]

Hi Sam,

I tried both the ways but it is not working.

I'm not getting any error too.

[Bob_Schor]

I did not realize you were "pushing" the installation to clients, and didn't have Admin rights to do it yourself.  Think about what you are now asking -- you want a user to let you uninstall something from their machine.  Even if you "put it there by mistake", it is an entirely different thing to ask to remove it!  If you try to do this on your own PC and it doesn't work, oh, well, you just rebuild your PC, reinstall the OS, all of the support programs, rejoin your PC to the Domain, etc.  If I were the client, I would really complain a lot (there might be a lawsuit pending, in fact) if you "mis-removed" some code and my PC stopped working!

Unless you are prepared to rebuild your client's 50 PCs, just leave MAX alone on them.  If you have to remove them, figure out (on your own machine) the safe "manual" procedure to use, then pay the Admin for your client(s) to go to each of the 50 machines and manually (and safely) do the removal.  An Expensive Mistake ...

BS

[Munna232]

Hi BS,

Thanks for your reply and some useful guide lines.

At first I’m checking in my PC (with admin rights) and trying to execute batch file to uninstall. If everything is OK, I will do the same in other PCs.

If I’m running below code, it is working well & uninstalled all NI products but I want to uninstall only “ NI MAX” .

uninst.exe /qb /x all

I want to know why this syntax is not working.

[Lenzman]

I have still the same problem. I'm able to uninstall the whole NI-software via uninst.exe /qb /x all but uninstalling a single product will not work.

I.e., to uninstall "NI LabVIEW 2015 SP1 (64-bit)" according to the instructions it should work with:

uninst.exe /qb /ForceDependents /x "NI LabVIEW 2015 SP1 (64-bit)"

But I'll get the errorcode "1639" which could mean 'Invalid command line argument'.

I'm sure that this is the exact "product name", becaue uninstalling the product via GUI-installer the log file shows me exactly this name at:

<product>NI LabVIEW 2015 SP1 (64-bit)</product>

cf.: %ProgramData%\National Instruments\Installation Logs\InstallationSummaryLog.xml

Btw, no one of the single "product names" in in the log file can be uninstalled according to the instructed "To uninstall specific NI software".

So, or the instructions are imprecise or I'm not able to understand them or it's still not working.

[billko]

You're buying trouble, and lots of it.  Is it hurting anything?  Are your customers complaining?  If the answer is "no" to both questions, it's less of a headache just to leave it be.