thats crazy... uninstalling winamp... im disgusted by this Jesse Fellow

Posted by: Dragon at February 9, 2005 05:57 PM

What you aren't not considering is if you didn't want to not uninstall every none of the files that aren't anywhere except the Winamp folder. Only then would you always not want to leave the deleted files not removed by not running the uninstall.

Does that help? Or not?

Posted by: Manni at February 9, 2005 06:37 PM

Heh, the traditional programmer's "Off-By-One" Error. Also, an example of thinking faster than you type.

Anyone who says this isn't broken is a damn, dirty commie!

Posted by: Jim King at February 9, 2005 07:07 PM

You know, there could be reasons not to remove all the files. For example, there could be files there that the installer did not create. It's better to be safe than sorry in that case --- if the user were to, for example, save their playlists or music in the winamp directory, he'd be pretty pissed when it was deleted.

Posted by: derobert at February 9, 2005 08:33 PM

i think that the uninstallers only remove the files that were part of the main installation of that program. other files, such as playlists, skins, and plugins might not be deleted.

ive seen this happen with other programs, more specifically, installing no-cd cracks on certain games (that i own ;) and then uninstalling them will not remove the backup of the original .exe file. since there is still a file there, the directory is also not deleted.

Posted by: Carl Winslow at February 9, 2005 09:12 PM

derobert and Carl: Take a closer look at the language of the error message - that's what is broken, not the fact that it didn't remove all the files.

Posted by: anitsirK at February 9, 2005 09:24 PM

The fact that it didn't remove all the files is not broken, however the fact that it doesn't tell the user what or why things weren't removed is.

And the grammar typo is broken :)

Posted by: Ken at February 9, 2005 09:28 PM

You know what this country needs? More proofreading.

Posted by: Maurs at February 9, 2005 10:04 PM

That's not broken, that's security!

What if you had some MP3 files in Wimanp folder and it would get deleted? Someone would post it here being annoyed as shit. So, stop it. Not broken.

Posted by: dusoft at February 10, 2005 03:57 AM

dusoft obviously reads comments before posting.

Posted by: eliot at February 10, 2005 08:58 AM

When you install it does it give the message:

Not all files were not installed?

Posted by: Joshua Wood at February 10, 2005 09:00 AM

eliot: dusoft also obviously reads the "article" before posting, too: "annoying typo". ;)

Posted by: anitsirK at February 10, 2005 09:06 AM

What the message says is no files were removed.

Grammatically, it's a double negative, which equals a positive.

Posted by: schpoink at February 10, 2005 03:30 PM

"What the message says is no files were removed."

No, that's not true. What the message says is that not all files were not removed. This means that some files may have been removed.

Posted by: Tom Davidson at February 10, 2005 05:12 PM

"This means that some files may have been removed."

Well, in fact, I slightly disagree with you.

Consider:

"All files were not removed" -

Although most people would read that as "No files were removed", technically, I argue it means "All files were left intact".

"Not all files were removed" -

Although this does not specify that any files were removed, it extremely heavily implies that at least *some* files were removed.

Therefore:

"Not all files were not removed" -

This does not specify that any files were *not* removed, but it extremely heavily implies that at least *some* files were not removed.

So I take it a step further than you: I say that it would be incorrect if *no* files were removed - so I argue it means that some were removed and some weren't.

So technically, one might argue that the statement might be true, even though they're saying is backwards.

What they meant to communicate: We tried to remove all the files like you wanted, but we were only able to remove some (leaving others).

What they ended up communicating: We tried to leave all the files like you wanted, but we were only able to leave some (removing others).

Posted by: Isaac Eiland-Hall at February 11, 2005 02:39 AM

It's Shareware ferchristsakes!

Those code writers can't not make mistakes sometimes allofthetime!

Posted by: Paralysis at February 11, 2005 07:51 AM

We all know this is broken. But, I have to weigh in on this one.

Remember the rule that states, "A double negative implies the positive?" If you remove all negatives from a comment containing a double negative, you will get the positive statement.

A perfect example was in a move I once saw. A too-drunk patron at a bar told the barkeep, "I ain't going nowhere." To which the barkeep responded by saying, "You are exactly right!" Then he promptly (and roughly) threw him out.

If we remove both "nots" from our statement we get: "All files were removed." This is an incorrect statement, of course. Therefore, This isn't not broken.

Posted by: Randy at February 12, 2005 11:37 AM

A double negative isn't always a positive. "I didn't read none of the books" means "I read at least one (not zero) of the books". Similarly, "Not all files were not removed" means "At least one of the files was removed".

This is broken if we need a three-day discussion on its meaning.

Posted by: fuzzy at February 13, 2005 04:52 AM

Heh, this reminds me of:

"All your base are belong to us!"

:D

Posted by: Cookie4u at February 15, 2005 08:30 AM

How?

Posted by: fuzzy at February 15, 2005 07:07 PM

Fuzzy, "All your base are belong to us!" is a grammatical error just like the subject of this article, so it is *kinda* related. However, it is not the same (or even similar) similar kind of grammar mistake, so I'm confused, too, as to how it brought that up in his mind anyway.

Posted by: Brian at February 23, 2005 07:48 PM

Speaking of that, "You have no chance to survive, make your time."

Posted by: In the name of France! at March 16, 2005 12:07 PM

on the 'lost mp3' train of thought- if you had mp3s on winamp, why would you want to delete winamp in the first place?

they set up us the bomb.

Posted by: Bob at March 25, 2005 08:49 AM

Well, something cannot delete itself if its in use (the unninstaller)

what it needs to do is run a command prompt script after the unninstall to tell it to delete the left over files. Basically, the main point of an unninstaller is to safely remove the registry values of the program. I say broken - it is very annoying when this happends, and it is not hard to write a command prompt script that runs after the unninstaller is closed.

P.S.

Who keeps there MP3s in the winamp folder?

Posted by: Henry at April 13, 2005 12:55 PM

BLOATWARE!

Posted by: makebusy7 at May 25, 2005 12:59 PM

You know what youu doing

Move zig

For great justice

Posted by: one who is greater than thou at May 29, 2005 06:51 PM

** NOT BROKEN **

It makes sense to leave some of these files behind since the folder contains user-installed Skins and Plugins.

If you were merely uninstall it and the uninstaller DID auto-delete the entire folder you would lose these files and be unable to restore them! So people wanting to uninstall then reinstall would lose their data, not acceptable.

This message is to prompt you that when you uninstalled, the installer didn't delete these files. So if you *really* didn't want Winamp on your system you would know to remove the folder manually and clean up your skins, etc.

Posted by: Thomas at March 3, 2006 04:06 PM

Thomas,

Like we said to derobert and Carl, read the thread before you post. If you had, you would have noticed we were talking about the gramatical error in the message, not the fact that it left some files behind.

Posted by: James at March 25, 2006 08:19 AM