Strange trick/issue with VISTA and NAV

Tomas

Today we noticed a strange thing while installing/reinstalling/uninstalling NAV.

For example, let's say you have NAV4 installed in default location on Windows Vista. You decide to uninstall it. You do that from Control Panel using Add/Remove programs. Then you go to Pogram Files and delete remaining folders - to remove it completely (remember, that backups are not deleted when you uninstall client, right?).

Then, you open your NAV5 client (as a developer you probably have more than one version of client installed anyone) and click File->Database->Open, and you go to NAV4 default location. And, surprise, surprise... Client folder still exists, database still exists, and you can even click properties on the folder, you can see that it still takes some place out of your hard drive).

However, if you go back through Windows Explorer to the same path, NAV4 is not there anymore.

Strange? Has anyone experienced this?

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And this becomes a problem, when your files get corrupted, and you need to reinstall NAV client. If you install a new installation in same default location files will not be replaced. Which means, you will still be getting same error.

ara3n

Windows takes a lot of shortcuts for performance. one of thing is that when you delete something, it doesn't really go to the hard drive and scrambles the data and eradicates any history.
I'm guessing the newer version of vista explorer has made some changes so windows explorer doesn't see the folder.

When you run the NAV install, it uses the old version of the dll for file explorer and the folder is still there.


I think in xp, you can delete a folder from explorer. Then create a new folder with the same name, and you'll see the old files back inside the folder.

kine

And do not forget that if you are installing under non-admin account, the application will be not really installed into Program Files but into your profile into path "C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\". This folder is than mapped into the Program Files for the user. It means there are many virtualizations in Vista... for more see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control

Tomas

kine wrote:

And do not forget that if you are installing under non-admin account, the application will be not really installed into Program Files but into your profile into path "C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files". This folder is than mapped into the Program Files for the user. It means there are many virtualizations in Vista... for more see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control

Coool