The Uninstall on Windows is deleting user created folders too! :(

I thought it's a good idea to uninstall the previous version of D before I install the latest one, but when I did that, it deleted the C:\D folder, including the sub-folders and files I created under that "D" folder! :(

This is most unusual behavior. Can someone please fix the installer?

And as I was panic, I made a quick search and installed Recuva to undelete the files.. but sadly it overwrote the important files I thought of recovering! (I guess I should have tried it from a different partition or a USB stick).

On Thursday, 9 January 2014 at 06:50:56 UTC, John J wrote:
> The Uninstall on Windows is deleting user created folders too! :(
>
> I thought it's a good idea to uninstall the previous version of D before I install the latest one, but when I did that, it deleted the C:\D folder, including the sub-folders and files I created under that "D" folder! :(
>
> This is most unusual behavior. Can someone please fix the installer?
>
> And as I was panic, I made a quick search and installed Recuva to undelete the files.. but sadly it overwrote the important files I thought of recovering! (I guess I should have tried it from a different partition or a USB stick).

I've made a pull request to fix this:
https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/installer/pull/37

It only will avoid removing the installation folder if the root
is empty.  With this change you can safely add stuff to the root
of the installation folder but if you add stuff to the
C:\D\{dm,dmd,dmd2} folders they will still be deleted. I'd like
it to only remove files that were installed but it'd need an
exact list and we don't have that at the moment.

On Thursday, 9 January 2014 at 07:11:21 UTC, Brad Anderson wrote:
> On Thursday, 9 January 2014 at 06:50:56 UTC, John J wrote:

> exact list and we don't have that at the moment.

why not create the list during the installation? just scan the archive or whatever to find out the files that are to be deployed and store those in a list (if successfully deployed).

On Thursday, 9 January 2014 at 06:50:56 UTC, John J wrote:
> The Uninstall on Windows is deleting user created folders too! :(
>
> I thought it's a good idea to uninstall the previous version of D before I install the latest one, but when I did that, it deleted the C:\D folder, including the sub-folders and files I created under that "D" folder! :(
>
> This is most unusual behavior. Can someone please fix the installer?
>
> And as I was panic, I made a quick search and installed Recuva to undelete the files.. but sadly it overwrote the important files I thought of recovering! (I guess I should have tried it from a different partition or a USB stick).

This is the second time this has come up. While I agree that leaving the D folder intact would be a safe default, it still seems weird that anyone would put anything irreplaceable in that folder. In my mind I always saw it as the equivalent of putting something in a particular program's Program Files subdir, i.e. you're likely to see it wiped if you uninstall it.

On 1/9/14, John Colvin <john.loughran.colvin@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thursday, 9 January 2014 at 06:50:56 UTC, John J wrote:
>> The Uninstall on Windows is deleting user created folders too! :(
>>
>> I thought it's a good idea to uninstall the previous version of D before I install the latest one, but when I did that, it deleted the C:\D folder, including the sub-folders and files I created under that "D" folder! :(
>>
>> This is most unusual behavior. Can someone please fix the installer?
>>
>> And as I was panic, I made a quick search and installed Recuva to undelete the files.. but sadly it overwrote the important files I thought of recovering! (I guess I should have tried it from a different partition or a USB stick).
>
> This is the second time this has come up. While I agree that leaving the D folder intact would be a safe default, it still seems weird that anyone would put anything irreplaceable in that folder. In my mind I always saw it as the equivalent of putting something in a particular program's Program Files subdir, i.e. you're likely to see it wiped if you uninstall it.
>

I keep my git head version of D, and consequentially, my single-click update & build script, in my C:\D folder, and I think that it is the best place to put it.

On Thursday, 9 January 2014 at 13:28:46 UTC, Orvid King wrote:
> On 1/9/14, John Colvin <john.loughran.colvin@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thursday, 9 January 2014 at 06:50:56 UTC, John J wrote:
>>> The Uninstall on Windows is deleting user created folders too!
>>> :(
>>>
>>> I thought it's a good idea to uninstall the previous version of
>>> D before I install the latest one, but when I did that, it
>>> deleted the C:\D folder, including the sub-folders and files I
>>> created under that "D" folder! :(
>>>
>>> This is most unusual behavior. Can someone please fix the
>>> installer?
>>>
>>> And as I was panic, I made a quick search and installed Recuva
>>> to undelete the files.. but sadly it overwrote the important
>>> files I thought of recovering! (I guess I should have tried it
>>> from a different partition or a USB stick).
>>
>> This is the second time this has come up. While I agree that
>> leaving the D folder intact would be a safe default, it still
>> seems weird that anyone would put anything irreplaceable in that
>> folder. In my mind I always saw it as the equivalent of putting
>> something in a particular program's Program Files subdir, i.e.
>> you're likely to see it wiped if you uninstall it.
>>
>
> I keep my git head version of D, and consequentially, my single-click
> update & build script, in my C:\D folder, and I think that it is the
> best place to put it.

sure, it's neat. But still, I would never do it myself.
Installers and uninstallers are notorious for touching more than they need to.

Am Thu, 09 Jan 2014 09:12:30 +0000
schrieb "eles" <eles@eles.com>:

> On Thursday, 9 January 2014 at 07:11:21 UTC, Brad Anderson wrote:
> > On Thursday, 9 January 2014 at 06:50:56 UTC, John J wrote:
> 
> > exact list and we don't have that at the moment.
> 
> why not create the list during the installation? just scan the archive or whatever to find out the files that are to be deployed and store those in a list (if successfully deployed).

Why not use an installer that has this functionality built in? I would have thought that this is basic stuff for any installer.

-- 
Marco

On 01/09/2014 10:07 AM, Marco Leise wrote:
> Why not use an installer that has this functionality built in?
> I would have thought that this is basic stuff for any
> installer.
>

Inno Setup has pretty good support for this kind of things and a lot more..
http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php

On Thursday, 9 January 2014 at 15:07:02 UTC, Marco Leise wrote:
> Why not use an installer that has this functionality built in?
> I would have thought that this is basic stuff for any
> installer.

As I understand, the compiler is not included in the installer - the installer downloads a ZIP file with the compiler from the DM website/CDN and unpacks it. The problem is knowing exactly which files came from the ZIP file.

On Thursday, 9 January 2014 at 16:34:53 UTC, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
> On Thursday, 9 January 2014 at 15:07:02 UTC, Marco Leise wrote:
>> Why not use an installer that has this functionality built in?
>> I would have thought that this is basic stuff for any
>> installer.
>
> As I understand, the compiler is not included in the installer - the installer downloads a ZIP file with the compiler from the DM website/CDN and unpacks it. The problem is knowing exactly which files came from the ZIP file.

Exactly. Just preparing a list wouldn't be terribly hard in most languages but NSIS isn't exactly the easiest scripting language to do just about anything in.