nsis

Why NSI script doesn't show the folders inside $SYSDIR\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming

I develop an app which creates a Windows Service that creates a folder inside C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming, called MyApp.

I use NSIS to create the installer of my app. Everything works fine, except the NSIS script is not deleting the MyApp when executing the generated uninstaller.

After debugging, I observed that NSIS doesn't find the MyApp folder, which is pretty weird, because if I run cd /d C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming && dir /a I can see it there

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However, if I generate an installer with the following content

OutFile "installer.exe"
; RequestExecutionLevel admin

Section
    ; SetShellVarContext all
    nsExec::ExecToStack '"$SYSDIR\cmd.exe" /c "cd /d $SYSDIR\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming && dir /a"'
    Pop $0 # return value/error/timeout
    Pop $1 # printed text, up to ${NSIS_MAX_STRLEN}
    MessageBox MB_OK "My result: $1"
SectionEnd

I don't get the same result as in the command line.

As you can see, I already tried setting SetShellVarContext all or RequestExecutionLevel admin, but without any success, so I commented them out. I also tried to execute nsExec::ExecToStack '"$SYSDIR\cmd.exe" /c "cd /d C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming && dir /a"', but with no success.

Any idea why this happens and how can I solve the problem? In the end, I would like to be able to execute

RMDir /r "$SYSDIR\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming\MyApp"

enter image description here

Solution

  • On 64-bit Windows, the file system redirector will force a 32-bit application to access c:\Windows\SysWow64 when it thinks it's accessing system32.

    RequestExecutionLevel Admin

!include x64.nsh

Section Uninstall
${DisableX64FSRedirection}
RMDir /r "$SysDir\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming\MyApp"
${EnableX64FSRedirection}
SectionEnd