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Offer explorer.exe restart instead of full reboot on uninstall#24

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pg94au with Copilot wants to merge 4 commits into
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copilot/avoid-reboot-on-uninstall
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Offer explorer.exe restart instead of full reboot on uninstall#24
pg94au with Copilot wants to merge 4 commits into
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copilot/avoid-reboot-on-uninstall

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Copilot AI commented Mar 4, 2026

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  • Add RestartExplorerPrompt and RestartPendingMessage custom messages in all 5 languages (en, fr, es, de, it) to Installer.iss
  • Add CurUninstallStepChanged Pascal Script procedure that at usPostUninstall: if restart is needed, prompts the user to restart explorer.exe; kills and restarts explorer on yes (using {sys}\taskkill.exe with result-code checking); shows restart-pending message on no
  • Fix NeedsRestartFileExists(ExpandConstant('{sys}\ConvertsterContextMenuHandler.dll')) — avoids the NeedsRestart identifier which is unavailable in the uninstall event handler context of the CI Inno Setup version
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This section details on the original issue you should resolve

<issue_title>Avoid suggesting restart on uninstall when not necessary</issue_title>
<issue_description>There are times when the uninstaller indicates that a reboot will be necessary to complete uninstallation of the application. It appears that only explorer.exe needs to be restarted for the application to be reinstalled and functional again. It would be ideal if it were possible to just allow the user to agree to have explorer restarted, rather than suggesting that the computer needs to be restarted completely.</issue_description>

<agent_instructions>Ideally, there would be a prompt so that the user can choose to restart explorer to complete the uninstall. If the user says no, then it might make sense to tell the user that uninstallation will be complete when the system restarts.</agent_instructions>

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During uninstall, if a restart is needed (DLL locked by explorer), prompt
the user to restart explorer.exe instead of requiring a full system restart.
If the user agrees, kill explorer.exe and restart it; otherwise inform them
that uninstallation will complete on next system restart.

Add RestartExplorerPrompt and RestartPendingMessage custom messages in all
five supported languages (English, French, Spanish, German, Italian).

Co-authored-by: pg94au <5140674+pg94au@users.noreply.github.com>
Copilot AI changed the title [WIP] Avoid suggesting complete reboot during uninstallation Offer explorer.exe restart instead of full reboot on uninstall Mar 4, 2026
@pg94au pg94au marked this pull request as ready for review March 6, 2026 01:15
@pg94au

pg94au commented Mar 6, 2026

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@copilot The installer build failed. Runs on my local machine though. I have Inno Setup 6.6.1 installed locally.

Inno Setup requires NeedsRestart to be called as a function with
parentheses. The bare identifier caused an "Unknown identifier" compile
error on line 177.

Co-authored-by: pg94au <5140674+pg94au@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot AI commented Mar 6, 2026

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@copilot The installer build failed. Runs on my local machine though. I have Inno Setup 6.6.1 installed locally.

Fixed in commit 104eec4. The issue was that NeedsRestart was used as a bare identifier, but Inno Setup Pascal Script requires it to be called as a function: NeedsRestart(). That's why it compiled fine locally (possibly a version difference in how the compiler handles it) but failed in CI with Unknown identifier 'NeedsRestart'.

@pg94au

pg94au commented Mar 6, 2026

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@copilot Build of the installer is still broken, no?

NeedsRestart is not available in the uninstall event handler context
in the version of Inno Setup used by CI, causing an Unknown identifier
compile error. Instead, check directly whether
ConvertsterContextMenuHandler.dll still exists in {sys}: the file only
remains there after uninstall if explorer.exe had it locked (triggering
the uninsrestartdelete path), which is exactly the condition we need.

Co-authored-by: pg94au <5140674+pg94au@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot AI commented Mar 6, 2026

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@copilot Build of the installer is still broken, no?

Fixed in commit a344208. The real issue is that NeedsRestart (with or without ()) is not available in the uninstall event handler context in the version of Inno Setup the CI runner uses. Replaced it with FileExists(ExpandConstant('{sys}\ConvertsterContextMenuHandler.dll')) — if the DLL still exists in {sys} after the uninstall step completes, it means explorer.exe had it locked (triggering the uninsrestartdelete path), which is exactly the condition we need to detect. This is also more precise: it specifically checks for our DLL rather than relying on a generic restart flag.

@pg94au pg94au closed this Mar 6, 2026
@pg94au pg94au deleted the copilot/avoid-reboot-on-uninstall branch May 6, 2026 18:13
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Avoid suggesting restart on uninstall when not necessary

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