Summary

Symptoms

When launching an application during the uninstallation of a setup from Add/Remove Programs (ARP), the ARP applet appears to not respond or hang on Windows NTx systems (i.e., NT, 2000, and XP).

Cause

The ARP applet waits until the setup process that it launches and any other child processes complete. This makes it seem like the ARP is not responding or hanging.

Resolution

1. Using LAAW_OPTION_WAIT
   When launching an application from the setup script during uninstallation, use the LAAW_OPTION_WAIT option to make sure the application completes before continuing with the uninstall script. Then, the ARP will not hang waiting for the uninstall and its child processes to complete.

2. Using LAAW_OPTION_NOWAIT
   If the LAAW_OPTION_NOWAIT must be used to launch the application during uninstallation another solution would be to create a wrapper executable. This wrapper executable would just launch the application then exit. This way, LaunchAppAndWait with the LAAW_OPTION_NOWAIT can be used to launch the wrapper executable and end so the ARP does not hang.

Note: This may not work in all cases.

Additional Information

This behavior does not occur on Windows 9x systems (i.e., 95 and 98).

For further information about launching applications from script, see the InstallShield Help Library topic LaunchAppAndWait.