Microsoft KB Archive/212854

= SMSINST: Overwritten Files Are Not Restored During Uninstall =

Article ID: 212854

Article Last Modified on 10/27/2006

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Systems Management Server 2.0 Service Pack 5

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This article was previously published under Q212854



SYMPTOMS
When you uninstall a program created by Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) Installer, the installer does not restore any files that were overwritten by the initial installation.



CAUSE
This behavior is by design. For example:

Consider a user who installs program A with version 1.0 of a DLL, and then installs program B with version 1.1 of the same DLL. The user later installs program C with version 1.5 of the same DLL, and then decides to uninstall program B. If SMS Installer were to restore the version of the DLL that it overwrote while installing program B, it would restore version 1.0, which would likely break program C because program C requires version 1.5 of the DLL.

It is recommended that you configure SMS Installer to back up overwritten files. Doing so allows these files to be preserved in a separate directory, from which they can be manually restored if necessary.



MORE INFORMATION
To learn more about creating backup copies of replaced files, refer to the SMS Installer online Help.

Additional query words: prodsms

Keywords: kbadvertisement kbbug kbclient kbconfig kbinterop kbnofix kbpackage kbprb kbserver kbsmsutil kbsoftwaredist KB212854

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