Yesterday, I was tidying up my computer a bit. I thought. I was using a program (SimpleMU) and, since I have installed it several times, I knew perfectly well that I only ever use the MUSH aspect, not the MUD aspect. So I thought I could delete SimpleMUD and leave SimpleMUSH…
About an hour later, when I went to log the scene I had been role-playing, it told me that the folder ‘logs’ didn’t exist. And it didn’t.
‘change/remove’ had deleted an active program, all its settings, and 5 years worth of logs…without prompting me once that the program was active and that continuing might affect the behavior of the program, did I wish to proceed?
We were able to recover some of the files…sort of. At least, we got the files back by name. Just that what was inside them was all jumbled, older stuff, newer stuff, never what the filename stated. Makes me feel ill. Of course we hadn’t done a recent backup. My own stupidity, and this is the price.
But what’s with a delete command deleting an ACTIVE program, while you’re using it? Without a warning? Gaaaah.
Like usual in these threads, I must ask “why do you blame microsoft?”
Microsoft didn’t load the uninstallation program, the author of said software did. The uninstaller(either written by the software author, or produced by a third party), is responsible for that crap. As for the program still running when uninstalled, it’s still not Microsoft’s fault. If there were any files that were locked by use, or any DLLs that needed to be unloaded, it would have forced you to exit the progam.
All Microsoft does is put it in a handy-dandy ‘program uninstall’ manager. In fact, they’re offering you a pretty decent service since you don’t have to search each and every program folder to find the uninstaller anymore.
This is type of ‘awshit’ that Roxio GoBack® was written to fix. I don’t think you can find it as a standalone program any more-it was purchased by Symantec. Now sold as part of Norton® Utilities/System Works (?)
It is well worth the 10% of HDD space for the ability to undo bad installs or other events such as mentioned by the OP.