Wix toolset: complete cleanup after "disallowing uninstallation of component since another client exists"

today I found out that my installer does not uninstall correctly anymore. Meaning my app is not shown in control panel anymore after uninstalling from there but all files are still present. I looked at the log files and I see a lot of "disallowing uninstallation of component since another client exists" which afaik means I screwed up..

So what is the best way to cleanup my pc and to prevent it from happening in the future? What could have caused this? afaik a not completely uninstalled previous version of my app is the reason for this error?

Unfortunately, using VM is not possible for various reasons..

FYI: For developing and test purposes I usually test and create installer with 1.0.xxxxx where xxxxx often stays the same. My upgradecode is always the same. In addition I am using heat and wherever possible I am letting wix auto-generate GUIDs. Furthermore I have one CA to show my readme file after installation and one to execute a batch file (modifies registry entries using powercfg). Upon uninstall a executable is run to import an .reg file to restore modified registry entries (because they would be uninstalled by wix).

It sounds like you need to uninstall the features (or whole products) that have installed your unwanted components. Windows Installer has an API for querying components, features and products. The WiX Toolset has incorporated a wrapper around the API called DTF. You can use it to query features by component.

So, break out your favorite .NET script runner (mine is LINQPad) and run a query. For example, to find out how to remove "candle.exe":

// using System.Linq;
// using Microsoft.Deployment.WindowsInstaller;

// <ref>"C:\Program Files (x86)\WiX Toolset v3.8\SDK\
         Microsoft.Deployment.WindowsInstaller.dll"</ref>

ComponentInstallation.AllComponents
    .Where(c=>c.State == InstallState.Local)
    .Where(c => c.Path.ToLowerInvariant().EndsWith(@"\candle.exe"))
    .SelectMany(c => c.ClientProducts
        .SelectMany(p => p.Features.Where(f => f.Usage.UseCount > 0)
            .Select(f => new {
                c.Path, 
                f.FeatureName,
                p.LocalPackage,
                p.UserSid, 
                p.ProductCode})))

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Then, run msiexec /x <ProductCode> to remove all the features of the products

or msiexec /i <LocalPackage> REMOVE=<FeatureName> to remove just the features that installed the component.