Re: detect previous installation
Re: detect previous installation
- Subject: Re: detect previous installation
- From: Chad Wagner <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:52:21 -0400
thanks for the quick response!
yes, I agree about the "evil" bit. I'm trying to avoid things like
that, and a user savvy enough to remove all other files will probably
find that one too anyway. it's just hard to be such a "good"
developer when there are a number of "evil" users out there (though
hopefully a minority)...
I'm trying to think, what would I as a user think to do to
"completely" uninstall a program, and I would certainly delete any
preferences, receipts, etc. I was hoping maybe there is something
that the OS maintains that the user can't undo (short of a clean re-
install of the OS) such that I could determine that
"com.mycompany.mypackage" had already been encountered. kind of like
a file ID reference that can't be changed and will never be reused,
but as far as I know there's no way of getting a file ID reference
for a file that used to exist but has since been deleted.
I guess I'm hoping for too much, but hoping nonetheless...
thanks,
cw
On Jul 20, 2007, at 12:27 PM, Fritz Anderson wrote:
On 20 Jul 2007, at 11:16 AM, Chad Wagner wrote:
is there way that I can check during my installation whether my
software has been installed before, even if it has since been
completely uninstalled? any advice appreciated, thanks!
If you mean _completely_ uninstalled — meaning that all trace of
the software having been there is undetectable, then obviously you
can't detect it.
Most users are not so thorough. You might look for the preference
file, or for the receipt (/Library/Receipts) from a previous
installation.
Your software might place an invisible "breadcrumb" file of zero
length somewhere in the system for later installations to discover,
but putting unauthorized files on other people's computers is evil.
— F
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