Add/Edit Uninstall Task

To add a new uninstall task for your organization, click on the "Applications" tab, and select "Other Tasks", and click "Add" under the uninstall tasks section. To edit an existing uninstall task, click on the name of the uninstall task on the "Other Tasks" page.

Uninstall Task Details

To save the new uninstall task, or update the existing one, fill in the fields on the form, and click "Save". Importantly, you need to provide the conditions for when the application is considered to be installed, under "Installed Conditions". Also, you need to provide a method for uninstalling the application, which is also described below.

Note: You can mouse over any of the field labels for an explanation.

Application Name

Enter the name of the application.

Description

Enter the description of the application.

Notes

Enter any notes you wish to keep about the task.

Installed When

Input the system conditions for when the application is considered to be "installed", by clicking on the "Edit" button. OptiTune will consider the task deployment successful when these conditions are not met.

For MSI applications, you would typically specify the MSI product code as the installed condition. For non-MSI applications, you would typically specify an "Uninstall Key" as the installed condition (the sub key name under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall in the registry).

Uninstall Method

Select the method to use to uninstall the application. If the Installed Conditions are met (the application is installed), then the uninstall method will be executed by the OptiTune client.

The options available include:

  • Msi Product - Use MSI to uninstall the program

  • Uninstall Key - Use the command in the specified uninstall key (along with extra command line arguments) to uninstall the program.

  • Command Line - Use the command line specified to uninstall the program.

Msi Product ID

If the Uninstall Method selected is "Msi Product", then fill in the MSI Product Code for the application you wish to uninstall. This is the simplest and most reliable way to uninstall an application.

Uninstall Subkey Name

If the Uninstall Method selected is "Uninstall Key", then fill in the sub key name under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall in the registry for the application you wish to uninstall. On the client computer, OptiTune will lookup the "UninstallString" registry value, and execute it to uninstall the program. If you use this option, make sure you test that it won't require any user input by running it yourself from the command line on a test computer.

Extra Arguments

If the Uninstall Method selected is "Uninstall Key", provide any extra command line arguments to pass to the uninstaller defined by the Uninstall Sub Key, to ensure the uninstall is a silent operation. The OptiTune client will lookup the "UninstallString" registry value inside HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\<subkey>, where <subkey> is the "Uninstall Sub Key Name" provided above. Then, it will append the "Extra Arguments" you supply here to the uninstall command line from the registry.

Command Line

If the Uninstall Method selected is "Command Line", provide the full command line to run to uninstall the application. You will likely need to use environment variables in this string, to ensure it works across several computers. For example:

  • %programfiles%\myapp32\bin\uinstall.exe /s /r

  • %programfiles64%\myapp64\bin\uinstall.exe /s /r

Uninstall Timeout

Enter the maximum time, in minutes, to wait before giving up on the task. Note that if the uninstaller requires user input, OptiTune will simply have to wait until the timeout expires, before canceling the task, since it cannot provide any user input to the uninstall process. You need to make sure that the uninstall process does not require user input beforehand by testing it on a client computer.