Visual Studio Setup Project - Remove files created at runtime when uninstall

Question

I am creating a C# .NET WinForms application and I am creating the installer as a Visual Studio setup project.

On Windows 10, I can remove the installed files in the control panel. However, during runtime my application creates a folder containing log files, and this folder and the log files are not removed when the app is uninstalled.

How can I make these files also be removed when the program is uninstalled?

Answer 1

You can use a custom installer action to perform custom actions during installation or uninstalling the application. To do so, you need to add a new class library containing a class which derives from CustomAction.

To do so, follow these steps:

1. Add a new Setup project. (If you don't have project template, download and install it from here for VS20 13, VS 2015, VS 2017 and VS 2019, VS 2022)
2. Add primary output from your main project to the setup project.
3. Add a new class library project.
4. Add a new installer action to the class library project and use the code at the end of these steps.
5. Add primary output of the class library to the setup project
6. Right click on setup project in solution explorer and in view menu, select Custom Actions.
7. In the custom actin editor, right click on uninstall and select Add Custom Action ... and select primary output of class library.
8. Rename the action to RemoveFiles and in properties set CustomActionData property exactly to /path="[TARGETDIR]\".
9. Rebuild the solution and the setup project.
10. Install the project.

Code for Custom Action

Add a reference to System.Configuration.Install assembly and then add a class to the project having following content. You can simply have any logic that you need here.

using System.Collections;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Configuration.Install;

namespace InstallerActions
{
    [RunInstaller(true)]
    public partial class RemoveFiles : Installer
    {
        protected override void OnAfterUninstall(IDictionary savedState)
        {
            var path = System.IO.Path.Combine(Context.Parameters["path"], "log");
            System.IO.Directory.Delete(path, true);
        }
    }
}