oceanclub
11th October 2007 17:49 UTC

Patch Uninstaller Strategy
Hi all,

Thanks for the help I received before; I've written a successful installer for a game patch.

Now someone has upped the ante and asked that I include an uninstaller. Now, the problem is that the patch installs brand new files, but also overwrites existing files. So my uninstaller would have to delete the former and somehow restore the latter.

I presume people have written uninstallers like this before; what is the typical strategy? When performing the install, should I copy the files to be overwritten to a backup directory?

I'd appreciate any pointers as to what is the typical or standard way to write this, and any pitfalls I might encounter.

Thanks,

P.

Afrow UK
12th October 2007 08:41 UTC

This is the simplest code:
http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Backup_f...e_on_uninstall

Stu

oceanclub
16th October 2007 17:56 UTC

Thanks for that. Do you know if there is a version of those macros that works - or indeed if that one you linked to works - with entire directories?

The patch I'm working on installs a _lot_ of files, and I'd hate to have to two seperate lines (backup * install) for many of the files.

(Doing it once would be fine; doing it for each version of the patch would be a nightmare.)

Regards,

P.