I am experiencing a similar problem -- GAX is impossible to uninstall on Vista.

With / without UAC, as / as not administrator, repair and uninstall fail with either

-- a blank dialog box titled "Guidance Automation Extensions" with an OK button (this is my favorite; error logs contain an error saying "the description for event id 110001 from source MsiInstaller cannot be found")
-- error 1603
-- error 2689

There are no GuidancePackages registered in the RecipeFramework.xml file. Everything GAX-related (SCSF, etc) uninstalled fine. But GAX won't die.

I think if I had access to the MSI that corresponded to "GAX version 1.0.51104" I might be able to repair that way. Anybody got a link? All I can find on MSDN is the July 2007 MSI, which for some reason doesn't support upgrading.

Thanks!

Follow up:

I bit the bullet and used "Windows Installer Cleanup Utility (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290301) to destroy the thing.

The latest version installed fine.

Hi Anup,

Please note that GAX wasn't tested against any 64bit OS. By what you're mentioning, an specific issue with InstallUtilLib.dll, it looks like the GAX MSI uses a 32bit image of that DLL and that is failing under your 64bit OS.

Also note that VS and GAX are totally different things and installing/uninstalling VS won't affect/fix/change anything related to GAX, so you may want to avoid putting time into that.

-Victor.

Hi Nick, when you tried to uninstall GAX Visual Studio was opened? or the RecipeFramework.xml file is locked (read-only, or opened, ...)?

Thanks,
-Adrian

Hi Nick,

What you're experiencing is a bug in MSI 4.0 (Vista) and managed custom actions causing the real error message not to appear, that's the reason why you see a funny blank message box.

Please check your RecipeFramework.xml manifest file to see if there are any packages still specified there, if there are you will need to either remove them or just zap the <GuidancePackage> elements to make GAX happy and uninstall.

Let me know if this fixes it,

thanks,
-Victor.

Thanks for the tip, but unfortunately (as originally noted) the GuidancePackage element had no children. I even tried deleting RecipeFramework.xml altogether (hoping it would repair or just uninstall otherwise), but still no joy.

Visual Studio wasn't open at the time, either.

Follow up:

I bit the bullet and used "Windows Installer Cleanup Utility (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290301) to destroy the thing.

The latest version installed fine.

Glad you could get it to work (and sorry I missed you already pointed out the tip about <GuidancePackage> elements) !

I had my share of frustration trying to uninstall GAT/GAX from my Vista 64 bit box today. i have spent 5hrs in all reading up stuff that will just let me uninstall my GAT/GAX or any of the factories. Nothing works anymore.
When I try to uninstall the software factories, it gives me an InstallUtilLib.dll error and when I try to uninstall GAT and GAX it gives me the goofy looking blank dialog box with no error message.

i have tried downloading the cleanup utility and used that to no avail.
I have done a search for any registry information related to GAT and GAX and cannot find it.
My Control panel still shows the programs installed. Is there any way I can just find these programs and delete them from the registry and the hard drive and start all over again?

I also completely uninstalled and re-installed VS2005 hoping that would take care of it, but the GAT/GAX just doesn't wanna go away....this is worse than DLL HELL!

At this point I am really challenged and very very disappointed by the lack of support from Microsoft or the p&p group regarding these issues.

Any help in this matter would be highly appreciated.

Thank You
Anup Marwadi

Hi Anup,

Please note that GAX wasn't tested against any 64bit OS. By what you're mentioning, an specific issue with InstallUtilLib.dll, it looks like the GAX MSI uses a 32bit image of that DLL and that is failing under your 64bit OS.

Also note that VS and GAX are totally different things and installing/uninstalling VS won't affect/fix/change anything related to GAX, so you may want to avoid putting time into that.

-Victor.