Many of my clients utilize Citrix XenDesktop or XenApp and thus Citrix StoreFront.  Once it is initially configured and running, things are generally pretty smooth going.  But when it comes time to perform in-place upgrades of Citrix StoreFront, sometimes things get a bit hairy and go off track, usually ending up with a dreaded 1603 MSI installer error.  Then you are royally screwed because the StoreFront installation is half installed (or half uninstalled if you are an optimist) and you can’t repair, reinstall, or even uninstall using normal methods.  Below are the notes I’ve developed for myself and my support team to manually uninstall StoreFront should the need arise – which it does, often.

These notes are based on single server stand alone installs of Citrix StoreFront versions 2.6.0.5031, 3.0.1.55 , and 3.6.0.33 (as in I’ve used these notes to manually uninstall those versions before).  I have used these notes on XenApp 6.5 servers and on XenDesktop 7.x controllers without any issues.  Your mileage may vary though.

As always – Use any tips, tricks, or scripts I post at your own risk.

**Warning** Reboot and take a VM snapshot of the StoreFront server before doing anything else.  A reboot is a requirement before doing anything with StoreFront, it doesn’t matter if you are doing an install / upgrade, or are already screwed and need to manually uninstall – reboot before continuing!!!  And if you do not reboot – YOU WILL GET ERRORS that will prevent the instructions below from working.

Immediately after you have rebooted, open an elevated Command Prompt and remove all thumbs.db files on the StoreFront server which can be locked opened by Windows Explorer and cause the uninstaller to fail:

c:
cd \
del /s thumbs.db

Next, verify that the HTML5 Client is actually installed on the machine, otherwise the uninstaller will likely fail later on.

msiexec /i "C:\Program Files\Citrix\Receiver StoreFront\Features\HTML5Client\template\HTML5Installer.msi"

If you get a repair / remove Windows Installer dialog box, then it is installed and you can just exit the installer, otherwise install using the default settings.

Open the StoreFront MMC, and if it allows you (which it likely won’t), delete all your stores.

Open Add/Remove Programs and uninstall the Citrix Receiver if it is installed.

Open an elevated Powershell console.  Add the Delivery Services Framework snapin,  remove all the Feature Instances, then confirm they are all removed.

**Note – only add the single snapin listed below, otherwise you potentially will end up with files locked open during the removal process, which can cause the removal to fail**

### Add the Citrix Delivery Services Framework Powershell Snapin
add-pssnapin Citrix.DeliveryServices.Framework.Commands

### Remove all DS FeatureInstances
Remove-DSFeatureInstance -all -confirm:$false

### Verify all FeatureInstances are deleted - you should see just {} listed
Get-DSFrameworkController

### If any FeatureInstances are still listed, remove manually them with the next line, otherwise skip to Uninstall-DSFeatureClass
remove-dsfeatureinstance -featureinstanceid feature_name

Stop the Storefront services if they are still running before continuing.

Close Powershell

**Note – it is very important you close the PowerShell console at this point and reopen a new one before continuing below and attempting to remove StoreFront’s Feature Classes, otherwise the removal of the Feature Classes will fail**

Open a new elevated Powershell console (see warning above).  Add just the Delivery Services Framework snapin,  remove all the Feature Classes, then confirm they are all removed.

###Add the Citrix Delivery Services Framework Powershell Snapin
add-pssnapin Citrix.DeliveryServices.Framework.Commands

###Remove all FeatureClasses
Uninstall-DSFeatureClass -all -confirm:$false

###Verify all Feature Classes have been removed - you should only see {} listed
Get-DSFrameworkController

If there are no DSFeatureClasses are still listed, skip to Citrix.DeliveryServices.UninstallUtil.exe below.  Otherwise, some extra manual cleanup is going to be required.  Using your favorite text editor (Notepad++ in my case), open the Framework.xml file (I usually just run the following from an elevated command prompt.

start notepad++ "C:\Program Files\Citrix\Receiver StoreFront\Framework\FrameworkData\Framework.xml"

Within Notepad++, search for the tag “<Type>” to get all the guid’s of any remaining Feature Classes.

Back in the elevated Powershell console, repeatedly run the Uninstall-DSFeatureClass for each <Type> guid you found in the Framework.xml:

Uninstall-DSFeatureClass -Type {guid}

Run the uninstall for each guid one at a time – if you get an error, don’t worry about it, skip it and continue on with the next one.  Once you have gone through all of the guids, run:

Uninstall-DSFeatureClass -all -confirm:$false
Get-DSFrameworkController

Verify all DSFeatureClasses have now been removed.  You may need to repeat the above three steps a few times to completely remove all the DSFeatureClasses due to dependencies within them.

**note – don’t forget to reload/refresh Framework.xml in your text edit of choice if you need to go back and do it again to the list of the remaining DS Feature Classes**

Once all DS Feature Classes have been removed, close PowerShell and open an elevated Command Prompt and run Citrix.DeliveryServices.Install.Uninstall.exe.

C:\ProgramData\Citrix\DeliveryServicesUninstall\UninstallUserInterface\Citrix.DeliveryServices.Install.Uninstall.exe

StoreFront should successfully uninstall for you now and disappear from Add/Remove programs.  Reboot the machine from the elevated command prompt:

shutdown /f /r /t 0

After logging back in, open an elevated Command Prompt and cleanup any leftover folders by running:

rd /q /s "C:\ProgramData\Citrix\DeliveryServicesUninstall"
rd /q /s "C:\Program Files\Citrix\Receiver StoreFront"

Don’t worry if you get a “The system cannot find the file specified” error message – that just means the folder has already been removed or doesn’t exist anymore.

Finally, using Windows Explorer navigate to C:\Inetpub\wwwroot and verify the Citrix directory has been removed – if it has not been removed, manually check it’s contents for anything you need to keep and then delete C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix.

You should now be ready to install a fresh version of StoreFront.