During uninstall prompt to check for source files in install directory

Request For Comments
#1

During a cleanup of my system was un-installing ECLiPSe 7.0 and was prompted with

image

Perhaps something similar should be added to the SWI-Prolog uninstall. (ref)

I don’t see a need to do this anytime soon but it would be nice. I would submit a pull request but am really involved with learning how to use and control Docker (images, containers, etc.) from SWI-Prolog and don’t know how to modify the install wizard, so that would be a time consuming learning experience and quite confusing in the middle of another elaborate learning experience.

For those not aware, there is no need to uninstall SWI-Prolog before installing, but sometimes a full uninstall is useful.

#2

And, nothing is installed outside the installation directory and nothing needs to be installed by the user in the installation directory. Doesn’t such a check add more confusion than it solves?

I’m not sure whether the uninstaller removes the directory or all the files and after that the empty directory? Most Linux package managers will only remove the files that are installed by the package and remaining empty directories, i.e., anything added by the user will remain in place.

#3

Good question. I don’t know either so I will check on this and respond with what I find. This could be days before I get a chance to check this.

I am also not sure if the installer runs the uninstaller by default during an install, seems likely but I don’t know for a fact.

Some of the options I am thinking that need to be checked are

  1. Did the user choose a different directory for the install.
  2. Did the user add their own code below the default install directory, i.e. C:\Program Files\swipl
  3. Did the user choose a different directory (nonstandard) for the install and then add their own code below the nonstandard install directory.

As we know people new to something don’t do the typical thing and often try different things not realizing how dangerous the change can be, in this case, not accepting the default install directory.