How to remove a setup package with a known uninstall bug

Today was the 2nd time I managed to cause a machine at work to not be able to uninstall the project I’ve been working on.

During installation tests I “accidentally” deleted part of the registry and resulting in not being able to uninstall the MSI (because it wasn’t there) and not being able to install a new version of the project (“project already exist”) – AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I’ve tried using some of the uninstall tools (i.e. Revo Uninstaller) and even considered (briefly) re-writing part of the registry.

Luckily for me Before I could cause more damage I came across a blog post by Aaron Stebner – Trick for setup developers – how to remove a setup package with a known uninstall bug.

I’ve tried the first option and run “msiexec.exe /fvecmus my_product.msi” to Forcibly install a fixed version of the MSI and presto my machine was usable again.