I’ve noticed that each time I install a new build of WWL, the data for the following values are increased by 1. Since WWL is being updated (not installed fresh), and no new software is being added to the system, I believe these counters should not be incremented:
[code]HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SharedDLLs
C:\WINDOWS\system32\MSCOMCTL.OCX
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\MSVBVM60.DLL
C:\WINDOWS\System32\scrrun.dll
C:\WINDOWS\system32\unzip32.dll[/code]
How does incrementing them negatively impact your computing experience?
It doesn’t, unless/until I uninstall WWL and those counters are much higher than they should be, and those files are left on my system when they should be removed. Then you’ll say they’re only small files and some of them are commonly used so I shouldn’t mind… I can see I can’t win so never mind.
This really isn’t about winning – it’s about understanding. Those counters are news to me, which is why I wanted you to go into some more detail regarding your findings.
I’m using Inno Setup to install the Weather Watcher Live program files. As far as I know, it completely uninstalls all files that it installs. I’m not sure if it decrements those counters though.
Sorry, I’ve been married for over 9 years, and… You can get conditioned.
I had been assuming that the uninstaller decrements the SharedDLLs counters by only 1, and would then leave the files, since the counters would still be >0. I would be very surprised if it decremented each counter more than 1. I can test this when I get a chance, probably this weekend.
If that’s what those counters are for, then it seems the uninstaller should only uninstall those files if the counter is set 0. The DLL’s are pretty common files, so I doubt the counter would be 0 after uninstalling Weather Watcher Live.
I wonder what happens if you install a new Weather Watcher Live build without first uninstalling the previous build? The counter might have incremented twice at that point.
Sorry, I assumed you knew all about the SharedDLLs counters. Your assumption is correct in that the uninstaller won’t remove any files if the counter is >0. (At least it shouldn’t–I’ve seen uninstallers remove files regardless.) The question isn’t really whether it will remove >0 files but rather how much will it decrement each counter as it uninstalls… I’m guessing it will only decrement each counter by 1, but maybe I’m wrong.
Regarding installing a new build without uninstalling the previous build, you’re right again. That’s exactly what happens (the counter is incremented even though the actual “usage” count of the file hasn’t changed). That is what I was driving at in my initial post.
I will test this all under VMware this weekend, maybe Friday…