00791: ODBC Driver doesn’t uninstall completely when uninstalled.

Title:

ODBC Driver doesn’t uninstall completely when uninstalled.

Description:

Q) When I uninstall the ODBC driver, it doesn’t seem to completely uninstall. I also noticed that the installation warned me that I was overwriting an old version of the driver. 

Resolution:

A) This is a common problem, and can occur if you don’t uninstall the ODBC Driver before re-installing it. As an explanation all ODBC Drivers (not just BASIS’) have a count. In specific, the count for our driver is kept in the UsageCount value in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ODBC\ODBCINST.INI\BASIS ODBC Driver. Everytime you install the driver, this count is incremented. Everytime you uninstall the driver, it’s decremented. Here’re two scenarios that describe what can happen: 

Scenario 1: 
You install the ODBC Driver for the first time. The UsageCount is set to 1. Later, you uninstall the driver. The UsageCount is decrimented to 0. Since it’s now 0, all of the driver’s dlls will be removed. 

Scenario 2: 
You install the ODBC Driver for the first time. The UsageCount is set to 1. Without uninstalling the driver, you install the driver once more. The UsageCount is incremented to 2. Later, you uninstall the driver. The UsageCount is decremented to 1. Since the UsageCount is greater than 0, Windows assumes that there’s still a program installed that requires the shared dlls, and therefore won’t remove them. However, you can’t uninstall the product again to get the UsageCount to 0 and remove the dlls. 

Note, this is NOT specific to our ODBC Driver. This is how Windows itself deals with all ODBC Drivers. Also note that scenario 2 is very typical. 



If you’d like to completely remove the driver, here are two ways: 

1) (Somewhat Automatic) Before uninstalling the product (if you’ve already done so, reinstall), run regedit and set the UsageCount on the driver to 1. Then uninstall. 

2) (Manual) Afer uninstalling the driver, remove the following: 
a) bbxodbc32.dll file in the Windows/System or Winnt/System32 directory 
b) bbxodbcs.dll file in the Windows/System or Winnt/System32 directory 
c) ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ODBC\ODBCINST.INI\BASIS ODBC Driver’ registry key 
d) ‘BASIS ODBC Driver’ value in the ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ODBC\ODBCINST.INI\ODBC Drivers’ registry key 

Last Modified: 10/16/1999 Product: BASIS ODBC Driver Operating System: Windows

BASIS structures five components of their technology into the BBx Generations.