Uninstaller does not work when started from Control Panel on Vista x64

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Compile example2.nsi sample script distributed with NSIS
2. Install on Vista x64 (tried here on Vista x64 Ultimate SP2), accepting all 
defaults
3. Open Control Panel -> Programs -> Uninstall a program
4. On the "Uninstall or change a program" page, select "NSIS Example2" and 
click "Uninstall"

Expected output would an UAC prompt followed by the NSIS uninstaller being 
started.
Instead, you get an UAC prompt followed by a Vista "Programs and Features" 
error message box with the following message:

<message box text>
"An error occurred while trying to uninstall NSIS Example2. It may have already 
been uninstalled.

Would you like to remove NSIS Example2 from the Programs and Features list?"
</message box text>

However, the uninstall information in the registry seems to be correct, and the 
uninstaller itself works fine when started manually from its path C:\Program 
Files (x86)\Example2\uninstall.exe

This problem seems to be specific to Vista x64. Everything works as expected on 
Windows XP x64 SP2 as well as on Windows 7 x64 SP1, as well as all 32-bit 
XP-and-newer x86 OSes including Vista Ultimate SP2 x86.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
NSIS Unicode 2.46.5
Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP2 + latest patches from Windows Update

Original issue reported on code.google.com by stefan.l...@gmail.com on 18 May 2012 at 5:30

[GoogleCodeExporter]

FYI, just did a few more checks:

- my "Vista x64 testing machine" is a VM with a clean Vista x64 SP2 install, so 
I dearly hope my specific VM installation is *not* the culprit here.
- windows installer based applications install / uninstall just fine on said VM
- NSIS based installers have the above problem when started from control panel
- just checked with the following NSIS-based installers:

NSIS 2.46 installer
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/nsis/NSIS%202/2.46/nsis-2.46-setup.exe

Firefox 12 installer
http://www.mozilla.org/products/download.html?product=firefox-12.0&os=win&lang=e
n-US

Embarrassingly enough, both have the above problem. You cannot uninstall from 
Control Panel on Vista Ultimate x64 SP2.

Firefox12 seems to be based on (a fork of?) NSIS 2.33 Unicode, so this bug must 
have been there for quite some time...

Original comment by stefan.l...@gmail.com on 18 May 2012 at 6:56

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Just came across this issue as well. Running on a dirty Win7 Professional 
machine and a clean Win7 Home Basic VM.

Executable was created on a Windows 7 Pro w/ SP1 on NSIS v2.46. 

As with the above, the uninstall.exe in the install folder works fine, but 
fails when accessed from the control panel.

Original comment by br...@zendeals.com on 6 Mar 2013 at 11:25