Chrome Uninstall throws error

Hi Ryan,

What was the uninstall string that you used?

There are two types of a Google Chrome installation. One is per user, where the computer user installs Chrome manually. Since this type of installation is only configured for the logged on user Administrative rights are not needed. The other type of Chrome is installer is per machine. This requires the Chrome Enterprise installer (this is the Installer used in the Installer Library)

Here is a default (provided by Chrome) uninstall string when Chrome is installed for the user Al.Swearengen

"C:\Users\Al.Swearengen\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\21.0.1180.83\Installer\setup.exe" --uninstall --multi-install --chrome --verbose-logging

This command should be replaced with 

"C:\Users\Al.Swearengen\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\21.0.1180.83\Installer\setup.exe" --uninstall --force-uninstall

This may return an exit code of 19 but the Chrome app will still be uninstalled.

Here is the uninstall string when Chrome is installed for all users (per machine)

MsiExec.exe /qn /X{4539A93C-7BD9-3E8B-9694-73210E9F7D36}

Shane

Any thoughts regarding XP Pro sp3?  I've attempted everything here (corrected for XP) and still no joy.

Hi Michael,

Try running the command manually on one of the XP machines. Does Chrome uninstall? Are you seeing any error messages?

Running "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\29.0.1547.66\Installer\setup.exe" --uninstall --multi-install --chrome --system-level  manually, "Uninstall Google Chrome" shows up on the task bar as well as in the task manager indicating it's running.  I can not maximize the program on the task bar only "Close" is available with a right click., which does work.  It seems to be doing nothing and doesn't "finish".  It acts as if it is waiting for some user input.

Hi , Everytime i try and install or run a program this keeps coming up c:\users\owner\appdata\local\chrome\application\29.0.1547.66\installer\setup.exe I cant install printer or set say IE as my browser w/o this type of error coming up .... any ideas?

Hey everyone... looks like the Chrome uninstall has changed up a bit. There is a .vbs script (or the contents of a vbs that you can copy and paste into your own script). http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/ZWBTBLz7Biw

It goes without saying that you'll want to verify that this script is OK for your environment.

I didn't write the script but I did deploy it out to a target computer that had Chrome installed in some User's profiles. I created a script called RemChrome.vbs. I then created a PDQ Deploy package and pointed the Install File to RemChrome.vbs. I deployed this to this target system and all of the Chrome installations in various user's profile were deleted. This did not uninstall Chrome if Chrome was installed in Program Files.

My PDQ Deploy package had two steps. The first was a command step which simply ran the command:

%SystemRoot%\System32\taskkill.exe /f /im chrome.exe

I also added 128 to the Success Code for the taskkill step. Step two ran the VBS script (extracted from the site mentioned above). 

Shane, Maybe I'm not doing the vbs portion right, but I get an error when running it. :'(

David, what is the uninstall string reported by Inventory? Is Chrome installed in Program Files or in a user's profile? I have attached the vbs script that I used. Just rename the extension. Do you still get the same error?

Shane, your version of the vbs script worked. It did leave the icon on the taskbar and in Programs & Features though. I wonder if the registry bit from that Google forum post takes care of that?

Yeah, the registry settings would probably clear those out. I just ran the VBS provided to see if it worked. 

Just an update for those keeping score at home, I was able to get the vbs scripts working in that PDQ Deploy returns success at the end of the removal and registry scripts, however not all the time do I actually find that Chrome has been uninstalled. On my personal machine it worked perfectly, but on the staff I've been trying to remove it from I'm getting green checks on my scheduled deploy, but when I remote in to the machine I see Chrome still on their computer. PDQ Inventory is also still reporting they have it installed. :( 

I'm not going to be spending much more time on this because it really isn't a big deal unless my boss pushes back on me, but just an FYI, removing the non Enterprise Chrome is a b.

Not to bump an old topic, but I am having the same issue.  I am trying to uninstall to chrome on several machines....Anyone have a solution for this yet?

I wasn't able to ever get it working. It would report the uninstall was successful, but in reality Chrome was still on the machine. I resorted to manually uninstalling, but still doesn't really help because standard users can install it w/o administrator creds. 

Gotcha.  It seems like removing Chrome manually is the only solution as Chrome installs per user rather than as a program.  I ran into the same thing with DropBox.  This sucks, because up until now, we did not have a way to manage 3rd party programs ourselves, and taught the end users to do the updates.  They didn't pay attention to the installers for Reader/Java/Flash and installed toolbars and everything.  Now there are 53 PC's with Chrome installed.  It causes issues because some of our websites don't work with Chrome and it sets it to their default browser.  53 PC's is a lot of PC's to connect to and remove Chrome.  I have managed to uninstall all the toolbars remotely fortunately.

We locked the Chrome folder so nothing could be written to it.  Therefore it wouldn't install.  (Create the folder manually and then lock the bugger).  Anyone else build a successful package?  I've got a wicked .REG file that truly kills all reference to Chrome, but still need to uninstall the program properly.