Subject: Re: So how do you uninstall Cygwin?
From: Brian Dessent <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 21:59:44 -0700

[email-masked] wrote:
> 
> It occurred to me, while trying to work out why ssh isn't working on a
> laptop that we installed Cygwin on recently, to wonder whether the
> information at http://cygwin.com/faq/faq_2.html#SEC19 (How do I uninstall
> all of Cygwin?) could be a little more helpful.
> 
> It gives good advice, but ends by saying:
> 
>     It's up to you to deal with other changes you made to your
>     system, such as installing the inetd service, altering system
>     paths, etc. Setup would not have done any of these things
>     for you.
> 
> This is true.  But for ssh, and other packages, is there any useful
> advice that could be given on how to uninstall?
> 
> I'm wondering how I get the machine back into a pristine state to try a
> re-install, since perhaps some of our post-install changes screwed
> things up.  (ssh normally works just fine.)

Remove any services you might have installed ("cygrunsrv -R ssh") and
remove all entries from the mount table ("umount -a") and that should
pretty much do it, assuming of course you removed the main installation
directory as well.

Personally, though, if I were you and trying to fix ssh I'd worry just
about ssh.  Remove the service and any created files (pid, log,
$HOME/.ssh, etc.) and then re-reun ssh-{host,user}-config.  Removing
everything and reinstalling "pristine" is one of those things that
everyone likes to do but it always seemed to me like the equivalent of
crushing the entire car and melting it down to raw scrap steel to fix
the scratch in the side of the door.  But, I will admit, it does work in
a lot of cases (due to e.g. permission errors on the original install.)

Brian

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