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Uninstaller

When you produce an exe package, Sigil ships an uninstaller automatically. There is no WriteUninstaller-equivalent step to call - the wrapper handles deployment, ARP registration, and rollback-journal replay on your behalf.

How it works

On a successful install, the wrapper copies its own running image to <install_dir>\uninstall.exe. That copy is made at install time, not at pack time: it is a byte-for-byte File.Copy of the Setup.exe that is executing, so its size is the size of the whole Setup.exe including the embedded payload — there is no separate, smaller uninstaller binary and no uninstaller resource inside Setup.exe. Because it is the same image, it also carries the same Authenticode signature you applied to Setup.exe.

Both the uninstaller copy and the ARP entry below are written on every successful exe install, with or without an uninstall: block in the manifest. There is no way to suppress them.

It then writes a per-app entry under the scope-correct hive — HKLM for a per-machine install, HKCU for a per-user one:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\<AppId>   # machine scope
HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\<AppId>   # user scope

with these values:

Value	Contents
DisplayName	app.name
DisplayVersion	app.version
Publisher	app.publisher
UninstallString	"<install_dir>\uninstall.exe" /Uninstall /allusers (machine scope) or … /currentuser (user scope) — the interactive uninstall, which is what Apps & features runs when a person presses Uninstall
QuietUninstallString	The same command with /S: "<install_dir>\uninstall.exe" /S /Uninstall /allusers or … /currentuser — the silent uninstall, for scripts and deployment tooling
InstallLocation	The install directory actually used (written when non-empty). Load-bearing: a later upgrade reads it to recover the prior install directory.
EstimatedSize	REG_DWORD, in KB. Computed at pack time as the sum of the uncompressed payload file sizes — the bytes that land on disk — not the compressed Setup.exe size.
InstallDate	YYYYMMDD
NoModify / NoRepair	1

The scope flag on both values is not optional decoration: without it the uninstall would re-resolve to the manifest's default scope and could miss the HKLM-vs-HKCU keys and %ProgramData%-vs-%LocalAppData% state the install actually wrote.

No DisplayIcon value is written. The icon Windows shows in Add or Remove Programs is whatever it derives from the executable named by UninstallString — there is no manifest field that sets it directly.

Add or Remove Programs reads this key, so your app surfaces there with no extra YAML.

Two flows

Run either path; both are equivalent:

"<install_dir>\uninstall.exe" /Uninstall    # interactive (Apps & features' UninstallString)
"<install_dir>\uninstall.exe" /S            # silent (the QuietUninstallString form)
setup.exe /Uninstall                        # interactive, from the original setup.exe

Both enter the wrapper in Uninstall mode:

1. Run the installer.hooks.pre_uninstall steps. They run first, before anything checks for running applications, so a hook that stops your app — its own --quit, for instance — clears it out of the way. A hook that fails with on_failure: fail (the default) aborts the uninstall here. They run once per uninstall, however many times the check below is retried.
2. Check for files in use, on both paths, before anything is removed: a declared installer.app_mutex that is held, or a process the Restart Manager reports holding a file in the install directory, blocks the run. /closeapps asks the blockers to close first. On the silent path a block refuses the run with exit code 4 and names each blocker in the log; in the uninstall window it opens the Close-applications step (see The uninstall window).
3. Run the manifest's uninstall: step list (top to bottom).
4. Replay the rollback journal in reverse order - file restores, registry restores, env-var restores, service stops + deletes, shortcut deletions, etc. Every record is checked against the installation it belongs to before it is replayed; see Anchored replay and refused records.
5. Remove the ARP entry, then run the installer.hooks.post_uninstall steps.

Every run writes a log even without /LOG: the stamped Setup.exe / uninstall.exe writes its run log into the always-on diagnostic log, %TEMP%\sigil-wizard-<timestamp>-<pid>.log, on the silent path as well as in the wizard. /LOG (or /LOG=<path>) moves it to a file you name.

How uninstall.exe removes itself

A running program cannot delete its own executable, so an uninstaller that ran from the install directory would leave itself — a copy of the whole Setup.exe — in that directory until the next restart. uninstall.exe does what the NSIS and Inno Setup uninstallers do instead: it runs the uninstall from a temporary copy of itself.

1. Started from the install directory in uninstall mode (interactive or /S), uninstall.exe first moves its current directory out of the install directory — a folder that is some process's current directory cannot be removed, and Explorer starts a double-clicked program in its own folder. A relative /LOG=<path> is resolved first, so it still names the same file.
2. A machine-scope uninstall elevates at this point, exactly as before. Everything below runs with whatever privilege the uninstall has: the copy is started directly, so it inherits it — it never elevates and never drops privilege.
3. After taking the single-instance guard, uninstall.exe copies itself into a fresh, randomly named private directory — %ProgramData%\sigil-uninstall-<guid>, writable only by administrators, for an elevated uninstall; %TEMP%\sigil-uninstall-<guid>, accessible only to the current user, SYSTEM and administrators, otherwise. It checks the copy's SHA-256 against its own bytes from a handle that stops anything replacing the file, starts the copy while still holding that handle, and hands it the guard.
4. It then waits for the copy and exits with the copy's exit code. That is what a QuietUninstallString caller, a script and an upgrading Setup.exe read, and it is when Apps & features refreshes its list, so the interactive uninstall waits too. Its own diagnostic log records the handoff and the copy's exit code; the copy writes the run log (and the /LOG file) as before.
5. The copy finds the install the way the original does — the app id from the installer it carries, the scope from the command line, the install directory from the uninstall state and the Add/Remove Programs entry — and runs the steps above. When the journal reaches the uninstaller itself, the original is still the image of the waiting process and cannot be deleted, so it is moved into the copy's private directory instead. The install directory is then empty and is removed with the rest of the journal.
6. When the copy exits, the original process deletes the copy, and schedules the private directory — which by then holds only its own renamed executable — for deletion at the next restart.

What is left behind:

• Nothing in the install directory. The folder itself is removed when the install created it.
• One private directory holding one file (the original uninstall.exe, about the size of your Setup.exe). An elevated (machine-scope) uninstall schedules it for deletion at the next restart. An unelevated per-user uninstall cannot — Windows only lets administrators schedule that, and a per-user uninstall never asks for elevation — so the %TEMP%\sigil-uninstall-<guid> directory stays until the next Sigil setup or uninstall run on that account removes it (R114).

The leftover sweep. Every Sigil Setup.exe and uninstall.exe run — wizard or silent, any app — starts by removing the directories earlier uninstalls left. It is housekeeping: it never stops a run, and what it does is written to the always-on diagnostic log described above (the console wrapper writes it to standard error). It removes a directory only when all of these hold:

• it sits directly in the current user's %TEMP% (an unelevated run) or directly in %ProgramData% (an elevated run) and its name is exactly sigil-uninstall- followed by 32 lower-case hex digits;
• it is a real directory, not a junction or symbolic link, and holds only plain files — a subfolder or a link of any kind leaves it alone;
• under %ProgramData%, only administrators can write to it, which is how an elevated uninstall creates it;
• it is at least two minutes old, so an uninstall that is copying itself right now is not disturbed, and it is not the directory the running process was started from;
• every file in it can be opened exclusively at once. A copy that is still running keeps its executable locked, so the whole directory is left for a later run. Nothing is deleted until every file has passed this check.

An elevated run does not sweep %TEMP%: other programs running as the same user, unelevated, can write there, and deleting files there with administrator rights is how planted links turn into deleted system files. The directories a per-user uninstall leaves are swept by the next unelevated run instead — and the first process of a per-machine setup is one, because it starts unelevated and asks for elevation afterwards. Only uninstaller copies are swept: the other private directories Sigil creates (for downloads, hooks and updates) are removed by the run that made them.

When the copy cannot be made — no private directory could be created, the copy does not verify, or it will not start — uninstall.exe uninstalls in place, as it did before: the run continues and only the uninstaller itself stays in the install directory until the next restart (machine scope) or until it is deleted (per-user). The same happens when the install directory and the temporary directory are on different volumes, because a running program can be renamed only within one volume. A copy that does not verify is never started.

An upgrade still works the same way: the new Setup.exe runs the previous version's uninstall.exe /S, waits for it, and requires exit code 0. That uninstaller hands the single-instance guard it was admitted on to its own copy, so the copy runs inside the upgrade instead of being refused as a second setup. An uninstall.exe from a version before this change uninstalls in place, as it always did.

The uninstall: block

The journal reverses the install steps it recorded, within the bounds described under Anchored replay. Use uninstall: only for tear-down the journal can't infer:

• stopping a Windows service before its files are deleted;
• killing a scheduled task or a still-running app process;
• removing an AppData cache the installer didn't write;
• running a vendor's bundled cleanup script.

uninstall:
  - id: stop-and-remove-services
    type: run_program
    program: powershell.exe
    args:
      - -NoProfile
      - -ExecutionPolicy
      - Bypass
      - -File
      - "{install_dir}\\StopAndRemoveServices.ps1"
    wait: true
    timeout_seconds: 120
    on_failure: continue

uninstall: accepts the same step types as install_steps:. It runs BEFORE the journal replay, so this is the place to stop services that hold open file handles in the install dir.

Rollback journal

Every install step records a reverse operation BEFORE mutating state. Examples:

Step	Recorded inverse
file_copy (new file)	Delete the file.
file_copy (overwrite)	Restore the original bytes from a .sigil-bak stash.
directory_create	Remove the directory (only if newly created).
directory_delete	Restore the entire subtree from a temp stash.
registry_write	Restore the prior value (or delete if previously absent).
registry_delete_value / registry_delete_key	Re-create with the snapshotted prior value(s).
env_set	Restore the prior value and re-broadcast WM_SETTINGCHANGE.
shortcut_create	Delete the .lnk.
service_install	Stop the service and sc delete it.
file_delete	Restore the file from a temp stash.
http_download	Restore the prior file (or delete the downloaded one if nothing was there).
ini_write / json_edit / xml_edit	Restore the config file's prior content from a stash (or delete it if the step created it).
scheduled_task_create	Delete the scheduled task.
com_register	Unregister the COM server (withdrawn when the DLL failed to load or exported no DllRegisterServer, so nothing was registered).
firewall_rule	Delete the firewall rule.
The uninstall.exe copy itself	Remove <install_dir>\uninstall.exe.
run_program	None - external side effects are not invertible.

Each row is what the journal records. Whether a given record is replayed also depends on the anchoring rules below.

A mid-install crash leaves the journal in a consistent state: each record is written before the mutation, so power-loss between record and mutation simply produces a no-op rollback entry.

Anchored replay and refused records

uninstall.json is a file on disk. An uninstall - and a re-install, which replays the prior journal before laying down the new version - reads it and acts on it with whatever privilege the process holds, which for a machine-scope install is administrator. A record that named an arbitrary path, registry key or service would therefore be an instruction to an elevated process from a file, so the replay is anchored: each record is checked against the installation it belongs to, and one that does not fit is skipped and reported rather than executed.

Machine-scope state is also refused outright unless both its directory and uninstall.json itself are owned by SYSTEM/Administrators/TrustedInstaller and carry no non-administrator write permission. That check protects the file; anchoring protects against a file that passed it but should not have.

What a record may touch

Record kind	Replayed when
File and directory records (file_copy, directory_create, file_delete, directory_delete, config edits, shortcuts, the uninstaller itself)	The target - and, for records that restore content, the backup or stash the content comes from - is inside install_dir, the Desktop or Start Menu folder of the scope being uninstalled, or the app's own %ProgramData%\Sigil\<AppId> / %LocalAppData%\Sigil\<AppId> state directory. Nothing may write into the Programs\Startup folder, though a shortcut your installer placed there is still removed normally.
registry_write and the registry delete records	The key is under Software\ in HKLM or HKCU. Keys that define how Windows runs something - shell verbs (…\shell\<verb>\command), COM server paths, driver maps, Run/RunOnce, App Paths, Image File Execution Options, policy keys - are only replayed when the value being restored points at a program inside install_dir, and for HKLM that program's directory must also be administrator-only writable. HKU and HKCC are never replayed.
env_set	The restore either puts back a value whose entries are all already present (the append / prepend shape), or replaces a variable that pointed wholly inside install_dir before the uninstall began (the set shape - so an app that repointed JAVA_HOME at its own JRE has that reversed). PATH and other variables Windows depends on may only have entries removed, never be replaced or deleted, and a machine-scope entry must be administrator-only writable.
service_install	The service's registered ImagePath runs a binary inside install_dir, or the service no longer exists.
com_register	The DLL path is re-derived from install_dir; a recorded path that does not resolve inside it is never loaded.

The install directory used as the anchor is the one recorded at install time - the /D= or wizard-chosen destination, not a recomputed default - falling back to the ARP InstallLocation for installs that predate the recorded field.

What a refusal looks like

A refused record is skipped, logged, and the rest of the replay continues. Aborting would let one bad record block an entire uninstall; skipping silently would hide it. The /LOG file and the wizard's log pane get one line per refusal:

refused: restore_file refused: 'C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts' is outside the install directory 'C:\Program Files\Acme' and the scope roots the installer legitimately writes

followed by a summary line naming how many records were refused.

A healthy uninstall emits no refusal lines at all. In particular, file_delete, directory_delete, ini_write, json_edit and xml_edit stash the prior content under %TEMP% so a mid-install rollback can put it back; that stash is reclaimed the moment the install commits, so at uninstall time those records simply have nothing to restore and are replayed as no-ops, silently. Seeing nothing is the expected outcome.

So if you do see refusals, that is worth investigating rather than ignoring. Either the journal was tampered with, or the app writes somewhere the anchor does not cover - most commonly a step whose destination is outside install_dir, such as %ProgramData%\<YourApp>. Data written outside the anchored locations is left on disk when the app is removed; delete it from an uninstall: step, which runs before the journal replay and is not anchored.

cannot upgrade: … is not verified

Separately from the journal, an upgrade or re-install that has to run the previous version's uninstall.exe first will refuse to launch it when privilege is at stake - that is, when the install is machine-scope, or when the current process is already elevated - unless that executable is either Authenticode-valid or sits somewhere only administrators can write. The run aborts before anything is installed, with:

cannot upgrade: 'C:\...\uninstall.exe' is not verified

This is reachable in practice for an unsigned machine-scope install whose directory grants ordinary users write access - for example an install onto a secondary volume such as D:\Apps\MyApp, whose default root permissions grant Users write. Signing your installer resolves it, because uninstall.exe is a copy of the signed setup.exe. Installing under %ProgramFiles% also resolves it. Unelevated per-user upgrades are not gated at all: there is no privilege boundary to protect.

Silent uninstall

/S suppresses any wizard chrome the uninstall flow would otherwise show. Sigil registers it as the QuietUninstallString, which is what deployment tooling and scripts that remove software unattended look for.

Pressing Uninstall in Apps & features (or Add or Remove Programs) runs the UninstallString, which carries no /S, so the person who asked for the removal sees the uninstall window (below). That is deliberate — a silent run that is refused (an application still running, a pre_uninstall hook that aborted) has nobody to tell, and from the user's side it looks as if the button did nothing. Double-clicking <install_dir>\uninstall.exe directly, with no flags, opens the same window.

The uninstall window

The interactive uninstall is Confirm → [Close apps] → Progress → Done | Failed, or Not installed when there is nothing to remove.

• Confirm. Uninstall starts the run; Cancel leaves with exit code 2.
• Close apps — shown only when something is running. Pressing Uninstall runs the pre_uninstall hooks and then the files-in-use check; if an application is still holding the install, the run stops there, before anything is removed, and the window shows the same Close-applications screen as the install wizard: each blocking application with its process id, Retry (re-scan after closing them yourself), Close for me (asks each application to shut down normally through the Restart Manager, in the background, then re-scans and says so if any are still running), and Cancel (exit code 2, nothing removed — the pre_uninstall hooks have already run by then). Once nothing is blocking, the uninstall continues to Progress without running the hooks again.
• Progress grows the reversal log as the journal replays. The title bar's X (and Alt+F4) is refused while it runs: stopping half-way would leave a partly removed install. On Confirm and Close apps the X means Cancel.
• Done or Failed close with exit code 0 or 1.
• Not installed — shown instead of Confirm when there is nothing to remove: no uninstall state exists for the app in that scope, which is what a leftover uninstall.exe of an already-removed app finds. It says " is not installed", runs no hook, and closes with exit code 0.

When the app is not installed

An uninstall that finds no uninstall state for the app in its scope has nothing to remove, and that is not a failure. The window opens on its Not installed screen (above); the silent path prints <App> is not installed … there is nothing to uninstall, writes result: not installed to the log, and exits 0. No pre_uninstall or post_uninstall hook runs. An upgrade whose previous version's uninstall.exe finds no state therefore proceeds instead of being refused; an uninstall.exe from before this behaviour still exits 1 there.

This is only for state that is absent. State that exists but is refused — a machine-scope state file an ordinary user could have written, or one that will not parse — still fails the uninstall exactly as before, naming the refusal: reporting it as "not installed" would hide the very thing the refusal exists to surface.

See also

• Manifest reference - top-level uninstall
• Install steps
• Migrating from Inno Setup