Uninstaller should have option to remove data (except for wallet) #993

issue gavinandresen opened this issue on March 26, 2012

gavinandresen commented at 4:56 PM on March 26, 2012: contributor

Install and then run Bitcoin-Qt. Then quit and uninstall.

RESULT: C:\Program Files\Bitcoin\locale folder is left behind. RESULT: %APPDATA%\Bitcoin\addr.dat, .lock, db.log, debug.log, etc left behind

I'd expect everything except wallet.dat to be removed (and it would be nice if there was an uninstall checkbox, NOT checked by default, to remove the wallet, too).
luke-jr commented at 4:59 PM on March 26, 2012: member

IMO, anything that removes wallet.dat should probably send a decrypted-from-user encrypted-to-developers copy to some server. Otherwise, I can see people misreading the checkbox label and destroying coins all too easily...
laanwj commented at 5:24 PM on March 26, 2012: member

I have no clue where the locale/ directory comes from. Could be a Qt issue, but it's not being created on linux, and I don't remember seeing it before when running my own windows compiles... probably a remnant from the Wx UI which had locales in a separate directory
gavinandresen commented at 5:35 PM on March 26, 2012: contributor

Thanks @laanwj; I'll test some more, and if it is a Wx bitcoin remnant I'll have the 0.6 installer remove it, too.
gavinandresen commented at 8:22 PM on March 28, 2012: contributor

Fixed in 0.6rc5.

EDIT: re-opened, only partially fixed, it should still remove everything except for wallet.dat and bitcoin.conf from %APPDATA%\Bitcoin
gavinandresen closed this on Mar 28, 2012
gavinandresen reopened this on Mar 28, 2012
gmaxwell commented at 8:30 PM on March 28, 2012: contributor

careful— removing the db logs when bitcoin was shutdown uncleanly may make the wallet unreadable.
Diapolo commented at 12:31 PM on September 21, 2012: none

Is there still work to be done here? I simply can't tell as I never use the installer.
laanwj commented at 2:38 PM on February 24, 2014: member

An option to the uninstaller to remove data (except for the wallet) would make sense. However, this should not be the default behavior because people may want to uninstall one version to install another (for example remove a 32-bit version to install the 64-bit one).
laanwj renamed this:
~~Windows uninstall leaves locale\ directory, %APPDATA\Bitcoin\...~~
Uninstaller should have option to remove data (except for wallet)
on Apr 23, 2014
laanwj removed the label Bug on Apr 23, 2014
laanwj added the label Improvement on Apr 23, 2014
laanwj added the label Feature on Feb 9, 2016
laanwj removed the label Priority Medium on Feb 9, 2016
laanwj removed the label Refactoring on Feb 9, 2016
suprnurd referenced this in commit 5e564e17d3 on Dec 5, 2017
ptschip referenced this in commit f5e8c00459 on Mar 15, 2018
MarcoFalke commented at 11:45 PM on May 8, 2020: member

The feature request didn't seem to attract much attention in the past. Also, the issue seems not important enough right now to keep it sitting around idle in the list of open issues.

Closing due to lack of interest. Pull requests with improvements are always welcome.
MarcoFalke closed this on May 8, 2020
DrahtBot locked this on Feb 15, 2022

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#11959 OSX Uninstaller (which can also delete blockchain data)