Uninstalling the product offerings by using response files

You can uninstall any product offering by using Installation Manager response files.

Before you begin

Optional: If you are recording a response file, perform or record the installation of Installation Manager and installation of the product to a temporary installation registry on one of your systems so that you can use this temporary registry to record the uninstallation without using the standard registry where Installation Manager is installed.

Before you uninstall the product, ensure that your user profile has *ALLOBJ and *SECADM special authorities.

1. Create a response file to uninstall the product.

   A response file is an XML file that contains the data that is required to uninstall the product, such as the offering IDs and the installation directory.

   Important: When you uninstall any product offering, you must uninstall all packages that are extensions of the offering under the same package group. You can either list each individual offering package to uninstall, or uninstall all packages in the package group.

   For example, the WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment offering requires IBM SDK, Java™ Technology Edition. To uninstall these offerings, you have two options:

   • Add an <uninstall> element that contains two <offering> elements in your response file: one for the product offering (com.ibm.websphere.ND.v90), and one for the Java SDK (com.ibm.java.jdk.v8).
   • Add an <uninstallAll> element and specify the name of the package group on the profile attribute. The product offering, the Java SDK offering, and any other offerings in the package group are uninstalled.

   For a sample response file that uninstalls WebSphere Application Server Version 9.0 and IBM SDK, Java Technology Edition, Version 8, see the example.

   Tip: You can use the Installation Manager GUI to record the uninstallation response files. When you record a response file, the selections that you make in Installation Manager are stored in the response file.
   
   1. From a command line, change to the eclipse subdirectory in the directory where you installed Installation Manager.
   2. Start Installation Manager from the command line with the -record option.
      For example:

      • Administrator or non-administrator:

        IBMIM.exe -skipInstall "C:\temp\imRegistry" 
          -record C:\temp\uninstall_response_file.xml

      • Administrator:

        ./IBMIM -skipInstall /var/temp/imRegistry 
          -record /var/temp/uninstall_response_file.xml

      • Non-administrator:

        ./IBMIM -skipInstall user_home/var/temp/imRegistry 
          -record user_home/var/temp/uninstall_response_file.xml

      Tip: Specifying the -skipInstall parameter records the response file without uninstalling the product.

      If you use a temporary data location with the -skipInstall parameter, Installation Manager writes the installation registry to the specified temporary data location while recording. You can then use the generated response file to uninstall the product, removing the product files and updating the standard installation registry.

      Do not use the -skipInstall operation on the actual agent data location used by Installation Manager. This usage is unsupported. Use a clean writable location, and reuse that location for future recording sessions.

      For more information, see the IBM Installation Manager documentation.

   3. Follow the steps in Uninstalling the product offerings from distributed operating systems by using the GUI.
2. Stop the product installation that you are uninstalling.
3. Start the command line.

   On a CL command line, run the STRQSH command to start the Qshell command shell.

4. Change to the eclipse/tools subdirectory in the directory where you installed Installation Manager.
5. Run the imcl input command and specify the location of the response file.
   For example:

   • Administrator or non-administrator:

     imcl.exe 
       input C:\temp\uninstall_response_file.xml 
       -log C:\temp\uninstall_log.xml

   • Administrator:

     ./imcl
       input /var/temp/uninstall_response_file.xml 
       -log /var/temp/uninstall_log.xml

   • Non-administrator:

     ./imcl
       input user_home/var/temp/uninstall_response_file.xml 
       -log user_home/var/temp/uninstall_log.xml

   • 

     ./imcl
       input $HOME/WASFiles/temp/uninstall_response_file.xml 
       -log $HOME/WASFiles/temp/uninstall_log.xml

6. Optional: List all installed packages to verify the uninstallation.
   

   ./imcl listInstalledPackages

   

   imcl listInstalledPackages

7. Optional: Uninstall IBM Installation Manager.
   Important: Before you can uninstall IBM Installation Manager, you must uninstall all of the packages that were installed by Installation Manager.

   For more information, see the IBM Installation Manager documentation.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<agent-input clean='true' temporary='true'>
<uninstall modify='false'>
<offering id='com.ibm.websphere.ND.v90' 
  profile='IBM WebSphere Application Server V9.0'/>
<offering id='com.ibm.java.jdk.v8' 
  profile='IBM WebSphere Application Server V9.0'/>
</uninstall>
<profile id='IBM WebSphere Application Server V9.0' 
  installLocation='C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer'>
<data key='eclipseLocation' value='C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer'/>
<data key='user.import.profile' value='false'/>
<data key='cic.selector.nl' value='cs,de,en,es,fr,hu,it,ja,ko,pl,pt_BR,ro,ru,zh,zh_HK,zh_TW'/>
</profile>
</agent-input>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<agent-input clean='true' temporary='true'>
<uninstallAll profile='IBM WebSphere Application Server V9.0'>
</uninstallAll>
<profile id='IBM WebSphere Application Server V9.0' 
  installLocation='C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer'>
<data key='eclipseLocation' value='C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer'/>
<data key='user.import.profile' value='false'/>
<data key='cic.selector.nl' value='cs,de,en,es,fr,hu,it,ja,ko,pl,pt_BR,ro,ru,zh,zh_HK,zh_TW'/>
</profile>
</agent-input>