ADMS 2014 Uninstall - won't happen!

[Neil_Cross]

Hey.  I'm in a bit of a mess!

I tried uninstalling ADMS 2014 with SP2 but it hung, for 45 minutes, twice, wouldn't uninstall at all.

So I downloaded that MS KB Hotfix recommended on the Vault site, and that made it worse.  Uninstall then said "failed to get allied products", I couldn't do a thing at that point.  

So I downloaded Microsoft Fix It, that attempted to remove ADMS 2014 but left all the reg keys, services, IIS app pools etc, that made it worse!! It removed ADMS 2014 from the programs list but all the junk was left over, including SP2.

Tried to re-install ADMS 2014 from media, says incompatible product already installed.

So I then went ham on it, removed all leftover folders, removed all reg keys relating to ADMS 2014, removed job dispatch service, removed SP2 from the updates list via registry. 

As far as I can tell, there is no trace of ADMS 2014 on the server but the media still recognises an existing old install.

Now I'm goosed and stuck.  Is there an Autodesk dev out there who has a list of every file/reg key I need to remove to get this ADMS reinstalled? Any help would be greatly appreciated as I've hit a wall with this and probably going to make it progressively worse if I haven't already rendered it beyond help!

Thanks in advance.  Neil.

[Neil_Cross · Accepted solution]

Sorted it, after 20 odd hours of painstaking frustration.

This is more for my own benefit, need to log what I did for future reference.

Removed litereally every trace of ADMS from the server.  All Autodesk folders, including common shared and appdata folder.  Manually removed the job dispatch service, removed SQL and all leftovers, removed AutodeskDM app pool and all traces from IIS.  Searched entire registry and removed probably over 300 keys and folders containing ADMS, Autodesk, Vault, Server, 2014, 18.0, even as far as reg keys referencing PNG files and txt docs.  There was no trace of anything Autodesk whatsoever in the server registry, but the installer media still failed and was detecting an existing installation of ADMS 2014.

After using Microsoft Fix It to initially try and resolve the first uninstallation problems, Fix It left over a backup of the files and registry keys it patched or removed.  I edited C:\MATS\...\RegistryBackupTemplate.xml to see whether I'd missed anything obvious.  Fix It has backed up a load of registry keys referencing the string 62A625FC468130100000209E05916B82 which must be some sort of registry GUID for ADMS 2014.  I then went back into the registry and removed all trace of keys and folders containined 62A625FC468130100000209E05916B82.  

Solved, the install media now no longer thinks there is an existing installation.  The media is clearly checking for this string rather than the more obvious keys we'd look for to delete.

[Neil_Cross]

For anyone who comes across this in the future and is in need of help, I've created a full video guide on how to overcome this problem.

http://youtu.be/y3X7J5tOHzI