[wpkg-users] WPKG uninstalls unmanaged software?

[Kevin Keane]

A couple months ago, there was a discussion on this list about WPKG uninstalling software that had been installed manually and never been managed by wpkg (The discussion was titled "Will WPKG uninstall software it did not install?" http://www.mail-archive.com/wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org/msg03848.html )

Back then, the consensus was that this was not possible, and at the time I didn't have a specific scenario.

I have come across such a situation today, and it should be reproducible. Here is the scenario where it happened:

I have a server with WPKG on it. There are three profiles in wpkg: server, workstation and preinstall. Server and workstation are used for my own internal computers.

Preinstall is used for computers that I build or that come into my shop; it sets up a baseline of software and makes sure everything is up to date. Things such as the latest version of Flash, Firefox, Chrome, Java, ... The computer I have been working on happened to have the same antivirus software installed that I use internally (McAfee ASAP).

McAfee is part of my internal profile, but is not part of the preinstall profile since not all computers that come in have a license for it.

I found that WPKG did in fact remove McAfee even though it hadn't installed it.

I run the preinstallation with the following command line:

CScript "%BASEDIR%\windows\wpkg\wpkg.js" /profile:preinstall /synchronize /nonotify /quiet

So the conditions to reproduce this appear to be:

- Find a computer that has never been managed by WPKG
- Create a package for some software that is already installed on this computer
- Create a profile called "workstation" that contains this software.
- Create a profile called "preinstall" that does not contain this software.

Use the above command line to launch wpkg on the test computer.

Thanks!

Kevin Keane
The NetTech
http://www.4nettech.com