Uninstaller Whitelist/Blacklist

[zbmowrey]

This is a big one, but...

In the uninstaller pane, it would be nice to be able to right click an item and "whitelist" it, removing it from the view (and adding the whitelist entry to the settings.ini file for persistence). Over a period of time, it would improve a tech's ability to quickly spot questionable items for removal - as the whitelist grows, fewer and fewer items would show up in the pane to be reviewed. Eventually, pretty much anything that shows up in that pane would be malware/adware.

On the other hand (and working in conjunction with the whitelist), a blacklist of software to be removed when encountered would be sweet - alongside a checkbox in System Repair which triggers the force uninstall/remove remnants features on any blacklisted items found in the system.

Not sure if the best way for tracking would be by a combination of name and publisher, or by CLSIDs...

But it sure would be awesome to just go straight to a sys-repair script and know that it's going to kill anything I have already determined should be removed.

[Fred]

Hi zbmowrey.

Yeah, that's a big one, but also a very interesting idea. I put it in my check list of future UVK features.

Thanks for posting this.

[Xander]

Was going to make the same suggestion but I was beaten to it by a year. I was thinking that now that UAK has whitelist support, maybe it could be extended elsewhere....(and support wildcards?)

If implemented, maybe it could be put into use with a <SmartUninstall> command?

[Charger440]

This idea could make the Uninstaller list a lot easier to read over time.

[Xander]

New beta's whitelist part is working great but two things coming up so far:

* Whitelisted items are automatically hidden (yay) but blacklisted items are not automatically selected for immediate removal. Could they be?

* When I white/blacklist an item with a version number in its name, the number gets saved in the blacklist. BUT could there be a way to save it without that info so that ANY program by that name, regardless of version number, will be selected? Even if it means needing to manually edit the INI, if we could automatically uninstall "RegSuperAutoCleanup v.____" every time we find it, that'd be dandy.
Also would be good for removing "Java 7" and not "Java 8" (where just "Java" would scrub both).
By the same token, it would be nice to be able to whitelist a lot of OEM software by just adding "HP " or "nVidia ".

* Okay, thought of a third -- more a matter of repeating the earlier one: script and SR options to auto-uninstall the blacklisted items? I'd throw it in the pre-repair section personally or Maintenance.

And barely an afterthought, more of a question -- does the blacklist supercede the whitelist? Could I, for example. whitelist all HP software but still blacklist something specific like "HP Shop for Supplies"?

[Fred]

* Whitelisted items are automatically hidden (yay) but blacklisted items are not automatically selected for immediate removal. Could they be?

Not sure that should be made the default. It's easy to do, though. Let's hear others opinions.

* When I white/blacklist an item with a version number in its name, the number gets saved in the blacklist. BUT could there be a way to save it without that info so that ANY program by that name, regardless of version number, will be selected? Even if it means needing to manually edit the INI, if we could automatically uninstall "RegSuperAutoCleanup v.____" every time we find it, that'd be dandy.
Also would be good for removing "Java 7" and not "Java 8" (where just "Java" would scrub both).
By the same token, it would be nice to be able to whitelist a lot of OEM software by just adding "HP " or "nVidia ".

Now there's a good idea which didn't cross my mind. I'll give it a shot.

* Okay, thought of a third -- more a matter of repeating the earlier one: script and SR options to auto-uninstall the blacklisted items? I'd throw it in the pre-repair section personally or Maintenance.

That sounds like a lot of work. Maybe I'll schedule this one for later.

[Charger440]

* Whitelisted items are automatically hidden (yay) but blacklisted items are not automatically selected for immediate removal. Could they be?

Not sure that should be made the default. It's easy to do, though. Let's hear others opinions.

I vote we let people choose and save the option.

* When I white/blacklist an item with a version number in its name, the number gets saved in the blacklist. BUT could there be a way to save it without that info so that ANY program by that name, regardless of version number, will be selected? Even if it means needing to manually edit the INI, if we could automatically uninstall "RegSuperAutoCleanup v.____" every time we find it, that'd be dandy.
Also would be good for removing "Java 7" and not "Java 8" (where just "Java" would scrub both).
By the same token, it would be nice to be able to whitelist a lot of OEM software by just adding "HP " or "nVidia ".

Now there's a good idea which didn't cross my mind. I'll give it a shot.

The more configurable, the better, with-in reason.

* Okay, thought of a third -- more a matter of repeating the earlier one: script and SR options to auto-uninstall the blacklisted items? I'd throw it in the pre-repair section personally or Maintenance.

That sounds like a lot of work. Maybe I'll schedule this one for later.

Do you really want to blind uninstall??

[Xander]

Do you really want to blind uninstall??

Of files I've decided I never want to see left on a system and, because of that, have blacklisted? Absolutely. (D7 has had this feature for a year or two). I don't blacklist things I might leave on some systems and remove on others - I blacklist the garbage. Period.

[Charger440]

Do you really want to blind uninstall??

Of files I've decided I never want to see left on a system and, because of that, have blacklisted? Absolutely. (D7 has had this feature for a year or two). I don't blacklist things I might leave on some systems and remove on others - I blacklist the garbage. Period.

I never did figure out where that name came from, "d7." Maybe he was sitting around a Dollar general one day and decided he wanted to copy that as well but to keep anyone from finding out he called it d7. Anyway, Having a command that says "delete all this crap and don't tell me anything about it" seems kinda dangerous to me.

I know you came from d7 but the problem is, if d7 was so great, you wouldn't be here. My opinion on d7 is just beating a dead horse.

Guess the point is, If Fred thinks it's OK to do, he will do it. He's pretty good at deciding stuff like that but for me even with a black list I would like to see what it plans to delete if only to click "OK" to approve it. If I really wanted to have blind faith in something actually working I would have paid the ransom for d7ii on the claim it was better.... You see what I chose instead

[Xander]

The support for D7 became awful and updates became few and far between. That doesn't mean it didn't/doesn't have some incredibly useful features - and an uninstall blacklist was one of them (and, originally, was my suggestion). Great for mass-removing the toolbars and junkware that people put on their PCs and ancient versions of Java/etc.

If people can trust programs like PCDecrapifier to remove junkware in bulk, why not extend that to a program you know better like UVK - which is doing the extra work of being a little more Revo-like by getting the leftovers (which D7 does -not- do!)

[Charger440]

I don't blindly let decrapifier remove things either. More often than not, I accept what it plans to delete but I still like to know. Look I'm not saying you can't let a program just blindly delete stuff from you clients computers, if your that confident, great. But for me, I would rather quickly scroll a list of 30 things then click "OK" than spend a half hour fixing something that wasn't broke.

[Xander]

Which is why I'm suggesting it as an -option- not a mandatory action. I'm also still new to UVK so would be reviewing the list just in case but, once the confidence is there and I find myself never unchecking the options then, yeah, I'd be implementing whatever automatic options are available.

[wmmiller]

Can we make the Whitelist/Blacklist part of the uvksr file?

Edit: Never mind.

[Fred]

Hi Bill.

Currently that's not supported, but you can add a custom app to your UVKSR file that downloads your whitelist form your server.

After creating your white/black list, export it to Whitelist.ini, and upload it to your FTP server.

Then create an app as follows:

App name: Download Smart uninstaller whitelist
Download url: [Your server url]/Whitelist.ini
File: %ProgramData%\UVK\Smart uninstaller\Whitelist.ini

Just run that app before going to the Smart uninstaller, and your whie/black list should be working.

Side note: This does not work on XP.

[wmmiller]

Thanks Fred,

That’s what I was thinking I would do. I was just thinking in my head the best way to keep it updated on my server. I will need to grab the ini file from the computer at hand if I’ve made any changes to it and upload it. Maybe add it to the reports or just do a file transfer from my support application.

Bill

That the trouble with what I asked. After thinking it thru, that wouldn’t include changes from other computers. It sounded good when I asked it though.

[Fred]

I see. You want to be able to update the SU white/black list in your server, while working in your customer's PC.

That can be achieved with another custom app that runs a UVK script. Give me a few hours and I'll post it.

[wmmiller]

Thanks Fred,

That’s awesome. I was thinking while I was driving home a little while ago. I said “self, Fred is going to say that a script will do the trick”. I get home and sure enough, you did.

Bill

[Charger440]

Bill you know Fred too well


Hold on.....


*Edit: I was gonna show you how to script uploading the file to FTP but not sure that would be feasible so.....

[Fred]

Yes, the fact is that you can do most everything with a script. This will make a good example of a custom app that download and runs a UVK script that does the rest of the work.

Open the Log analyzer and paste the code below.

Code: Select all

 <AutoItScript>
Global Const $h_Wininet = DllOpen('Wininet.dll')
Global Const $INI_WLFILE = @AppDataCommonDir&'\UVK\Smart uninstaller\Whitelist.ini'

_main()

Func _main()
	If FileGetSize($INI_WLFILE) < 20 Then Exit 0
	Local $hSession = _FTPOpen( _
	'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 '& _
	'(KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/43.0.2357.81 Safari/537.36')
	If $hSession = 0 Then Exit 1
	Local $ret = 0
	
	Local $hftp = _FTPConnect($hSession, '[Server name]', '[User name]', '[Password]')

	If $hftp Then $ret = _FTPFilePut($hftp, $INI_WLFILE, 'Whitelist.ini')
	_FTPClose($hftp)
	_FTPClose($hSession)
	Exit $ret ? 1 : 0
EndFunc ;==> _main

; FTP functions
Func _FTPOpen($Agent, $AccessType = 1, $ProxyName = '', $ProxyBypass = '', $Flags = 0)
	Local $aCall = DllCall($h_Wininet, 'handle','InternetOpenW', 'wstr',$Agent, 'dword',$AccessType, _
	'wstr', $ProxyName, 'wstr', $ProxyBypass, 'dword', $Flags)
	If @error Or $aCall[0] = 0 Then Return SetError(1, 0, 0)
	Return $aCall[0]
EndFunc   ;==>_FTPOpen

Func _FTPClose($Session)
	Local $aCall = DllCall($h_Wininet, 'bool','InternetCloseHandle', 'handle',$Session)
	If Not @error Then Return $aCall[0]
EndFunc   ;==>_FTPClose


Func _FTPConnect($Session, $Server, $User, $Pass, $Passive = 0, $Port = 0, $Service = 1, $Flags = 0, $Context = 0)
	If $Passive Then $Flags = BitOR($Flags, 0x08000000)
	Local $aCall = DllCall($h_Wininet, 'HANDLE','InternetConnectW', 'HANDLE',$Session, 'wstr',$Server, _
	'ushort',$Port, 'wstr',$User, 'wstr',$Pass, 'dword',$Service, 'dword',$Flags, 'dword_ptr',$Context)
	If @error Or $aCall[0] = 0 Then Return SetError(1, 0, 0)
	Return $aCall[0]
EndFunc   ;==>_FTPConnect

Func _FTPFilePut($Session, $LocalFile, $RemoteFile, $Flags = 0, $Context = 0)
	Local $aCall = DllCall($h_Wininet, 'bool','FtpPutFileW', 'handle',$Session, _
	'wstr',$LocalFile, 'wstr',$RemoteFile, 'dword',$Flags, 'dword_ptr',$Context)
	If @error Or $aCall[0] = 0 Then Return SetError(1, 0, 0)
	Return $aCall[0]
EndFunc   ;==>_FTPFilePut

Now you will need to edit the following line:

Code: Select all

Local $hftp = _FTPConnect($hSession, '[Server name]', '[User name]', '[Password]')

Replace [Server name] with the name of your server. Do not prepend ftp:// to the server name.
Replace [User name]' with the user name used to connect.
Replace [Password] with the pass used to connect.

The final command must look like this:

Code: Select all

Local $hftp = _FTPConnect($hSession, 'myserver.com', 'username', 'mypass')

Save the script with this name: suwlupload.uvk
Upload the script to your FTP server.

Create a new app as follows:

App name: Upload Smart uninstaller whitelist
Download url: [Your server url]/suwlupload.uvk
File: %ThirdParty%\suwlupload.uvk
Command 1: %UVKExe% -readfile "%ThirdParty%\suwlupload.uvk" -Passive

I tested the script on this server and it uploaded the whitelist successfully.

And that's it. Now you have two apps.

One that creates the local whitelist. Use it before going to the smart uninstaller.

The other one that updates the SU whitelist in your FTP server. Use this one once you have done all the work in this PC.

[Charger440]

Nice Fred

I like that... See Bill, he even answered me with a script...

This is what I tell people about UVK, Depending on your skills there is almost nothing you can't make UVk do