How do I fully uninstall?

[Pomax]

Describe the bug
I tried to uninstall sandboxie plus. Windows reports it's done, but after rebooting the sandboxie icon still shows in the systray, even though the service no longer exists. C:\Program Files\Sandboxie does still exist: how do I force-uninstall everything relating to sandboxie? Because the msi installer for some reason doesn't have an "uninstall" option baked in, like good installers (offering install, repair, and uninstall, from the same .msi file)

System details and installed software (please provide the following information):

• What is your Windows edition and version? Win 10 pro x64 v2004 (build 19041.1110)
• What is your current Sandboxie edition and version? v0.8.8
• Please mention in which version this bug got introduced: no idea
• Please mention any security software running in the background: standard windows defender

[isaak654]

Because the msi installer for some reason doesn't have an "uninstall" option baked in, like good installers (offering install, repair, and uninstall, from the same .msi file)

Question: which msi installer, exactly? I can only see .exe installers:

[isaak654]

In case you upgraded from a very old version , see also #970.
That's happened to me after restoring an old backup with a very old Plus installation by mistake.

[Pomax]

Deleting files doesn't clean up a registry or startup setting etc. though? It would probably solve the problem but only by now having non-working but active entries in the registry that would reactivate if something figured out it could just rebuild those files for hilarious side effects =(

[DavidXanatos]

isaak654 asks a good question what msi installer? we don't have MSI installers yet.

In case you mean the sandboxie plus installer because it has a somewhat similar icon.

If something failed with the uninstall the best approach is to install again and than uninstall again.

[isaak654]

Deleting files doesn't clean up a registry or startup setting etc. though? It would probably solve the problem but only by now having non-working but active entries in the registry that would reactivate if something figured out it could just rebuild those files for hilarious side effects =(

Could you mention the registry keys and files that stay as leftover for you?

You're not giving much till now, so I made a more accurate attempt (on my usual VM) with the recent 0.8.8 version.

1. Before my 0.8.8 uninstall, startup registry key is there:
   
   After my 0.8.8 uninstall, startup registry key is gone:
   

2. Unfortunately it doesn't seem the case with the context menu entry, after attempting install + uninstall + reboot" approach twice:

Other leftovers are HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\sandbox,HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\sandbox, HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\*\shell\sandbox, HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\*\shell\sandbox ...

3. My C:\Program Files\Sandboxie-Plus remains empty after the uninstall, probably because of the possibility to keep sandboxie.ini or other config stuff there.

4. AppData\Local\Sandboxie-Plus\Sandboxie-Plus.ini stays always there for future reinstallations

My considerations:

1. I would suggest to enforce the removal of all context menu entries above during the uninstall... apparently these lines aren't enough:

   Sandboxie/Installer/Sandboxie-Plus.iss

   Lines 406 to 408 in 9aa7c8c

   	// remove shell integration
   	RegDeleteValue(HKEY_CURRENT_USER, 'software\classes\*\shell', 'sandbox');
   	RegDeleteValue(HKEY_CURRENT_USER, 'software\classes\folder\shell', 'sandbox');

2. I would suggest to introduce one prompt before or after the uninstall process that asks "Do you want to uninstall also your configuration files (Sandboxie.ini and Sandboxie-Plus.ini)?"
3. Clean also the empty Sandboxie-Plus folders in AppData\Local and in ProgramFiles when there is no remaining file (I don't know if a conditional statement here could be achieved).

[Pomax]

That's because I don't have any information to give you: I don't know what gets left behind, but given that sandboxie plus was still running, somehow, after uninstalling means that something was clearly still left behind, that's why I asked if there was some way to automatically fully uninstall even after a regular uninstall attempt: I have no idea what's left and where, but stuff was clearly stlll left in several places. I've followed your advice your remove the entire folder, I then ended up doing several passes of CCleaner until there were no registry issues anymore (then uninstalled it because it's a giant piece of adware) and that seems to have done the trick.

Unfortunately, while reinstalling 0.8.8 then seemed to work, it wasn't able to run an installer sandboxed, where it wasn't writing any files to the sandbox (which at the same time making drive letters it was never going to need), so I guess I'm going to give windows sandbox a try. It's far of a hassle to use, but it seems to not run into "not v1.0 yet" issues at least.

Thanks for your work, and I hope Sophos goes out of business for how it treated sandboxie.

[isaak654]

Thanks for your work, and I hope Sophos goes out of business for how it treated sandboxie.

You're welcome. If you know someone that appreciates Sandboxie like we do, just spread the word... we need as many contributors/developers as possible in this repository.

Unfortunately, while reinstalling 0.8.8 then seemed to work, it wasn't able to run an installer sandboxed, where it wasn't writing any files to the sandbox (which at the same time making drive letters it was never going to need), so I guess I'm going to give windows sandbox a try. It's far of a hassle to use, but it seems to not run into "not v1.0 yet" issues at least.

Which is the installer in question?