Smarts: How to uninstall a Smarts application in Windows when the uninstaller.exe and/or uninstall.dat are missing

Products

• VMware Smart Assurance

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:


To uninstall Smarts software in a Windows Server Environment when the uninstaller.exe and/or uninstall.dat are missing.

Cannot uninstall Smarts application in a Windows Server Environment from the Control Panel.

Unable to find the uninstaller.exe file or the uninstall.dat file for Smarts application in a Windows Server Environment.

Smarts application uninstaller.exe file and/or the uninstall.dat file are missing in a Windows Server Environment.

Environment

VMware Smart Assurance - SMARTS

Cause

Removal or deletion of the uninstaller.exe or uninstall.dat files from the <SMARTSBASEDIR>\_uninst directory for an unknown reason. Smarts software cannot be uninstalled in a Windows Server Environment if the uninstaller.exe or uninstall.dat files are missing.

Resolution

To recreate the uninstall.dat and the uninstaller.exe so that you can properly uninstall a Smarts application, do the following (see Notes):

1. Identify the Smarts installation directory structure that contains the Smarts application you want to uninstall. The following is the typical directory structure for the Smarts IP 9.1 application:

C:\InCharge91\IP\smarts\

2. Move, copy or extract any custom Smarts application configurations created for your local environment to a safe backup location.

CAUTION! When uninstalling Smarts software, none of the local configurations/customizations are kept intact. If you have any custom configurations for your local environment, you MUST back them up before you proceed to delete, remove or uninstall anything as described the following steps, or the customizations will be lost.

3. Delete the Smarts application directory and its subdirectories from the Smarts root installation directory. Removing the Smarts IP 9.1 application directory mentioned in the preceding step would leave the Smarts root installation directory as follows:

C:\InCharge91
 

4. Install the Smarts application again to the same Smarts root installation directory.
5. Confirm that the uninstaller.exe and uninstall.dat files are now in the <SMARTSBASEDIR>\_uninst directory.
6. Uninstall the Smarts application using the Windows Control Panel Add/Remove Programs utility.

Additional Information

Copying an uninstaller.exe or uninstall.dat from another installation with the same version of the software from a remote host will not address this issue.