Cannot Install Due to Faulty App

[IICptMillerII]

I used to have DCS installed on my computer on a drive called D. That hard drive crashed a while ago. The problem is, my computer (and the DCS installer) still thinks I have DCS installed on my computer. So, when I go to install DCS using the downloaded launcher, it never prompts me for an install path. That part of the install process is just skipped. 

 

If I try to uninstall the app via the windows add/remove software, I get an error message that says windows cannot find the drive specified. However, it does not give me the option to delete the app either, so the app entry remains. 

 

If I go ahead with the DCS installer and try to install it, I get an error message that says "The drive or UNC share you selected does not exist or is not accessible. Please select another."

But, as I said, it never gives me the ability to select an installation path in the install process. 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

[Flappie]

Hi. This should help:

1. Open your Windows registry (press Windows key, then type "regedit"),
2. On the left part of the registry window, navigate to "Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Eagle Dynamics",
3. You should see at least one folder starting with "DCS World". Right-click any "DCS World..." folder you can find and choose "Delete" (and confirm).
4. Now, navigate to "Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall",
5. You should see at least one folder starting with "DCS World". Right-click any "DCS World..." folder you can find and choose "Delete" (and confirm).
6. Then close the Windows registry, reboot your PC, then retry to install DCS using this installer.

 

Edited September 2, 2021 by Flappie

[Worrazen]

1 hour ago, IICptMillerII said:

I used to have DCS installed on my computer on a drive called D. That hard drive crashed a while ago. The problem is, my computer (and the DCS installer) still thinks I have DCS installed on my computer. So, when I go to install DCS using the downloaded launcher, it never prompts me for an install path. That part of the install process is just skipped. 

 

If I try to uninstall the app via the windows add/remove software, I get an error message that says windows cannot find the drive specified. However, it does not give me the option to delete the app either, so the app entry remains. 

 

If I go ahead with the DCS installer and try to install it, I get an error message that says "The drive or UNC share you selected does not exist or is not accessible. Please select another."

But, as I said, it never gives me the ability to select an installation path in the install process. 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

 

You could also save the user profile specific files, recordings, settings, etc.

To be safe without issues later on after reinstall, better just give it a fresh start with the configs as well.

You could technically keep this and hope it works later.

 

1. With explorer, go to: C:\Users\YourUsername\Saved Games
2. In there you will find either a folder "DCS" or "DCS.openbeta" (actually I'm not sure if it's just "DCS" for release version)
3. Temporairly navigate inside inside the folder and delete all the files in subfolders "fxo" and "metashaders", then go back out to "Saved Games"
4. The one that you would like to backup, right click on the folder and use for example WinRAR to make an archive, name it appropirately like "DCS.openBeta_BACKUP_Sept2021.rar"
5. You could even select 100% recovery record with WinRAR to give you a stronger corruption resistant archive, preferrably put it somewhere you know the device isn't likely to break.
6. Now remove the folders DCS and DCS.openbeta from Saved Games.

 

Ofcourse if there was something very important on that disk, professional data rescue could still get it out, for example https://drivesaversdatarecovery.com  and I don't think they charge any fees until they get back with you if the data rescue was successful and you can decide if you want it or not, AFAIK.

 

 

 

In addition to registry cleanup, you could also get rid of temp files, maybe it wouldn't make a difference as most of that I think gets overwritten anyway, but just in case.

 

Delete - C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Local\Temp\DCS 

Delete - C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Local\Temp\DCS.openbeta

 

Edited September 2, 2021 by Worrazen