Sandboxie Plus gets confused with Sandboxie classic, stuck in impossible uninstall loop

[CamStLouis]

Describe the bug I hadn't updated Sandboxie on one of my computers for a while. When my main computer went all spicy pillow, I went to update Sandboxie on the other, and found it hadn't been updated in so long, it got the "This program may be incompatible with your computer" notification. Might even predate the sophos acquisition, who knows! So, I did some searching, was delighted to find that the project had been picked up as Sandboxie Plus. I downloaded the installer and installed Sandboxie Plus, assuming it would either overwrite classic Sandboxie or just install as a new program. This is where the trouble began.

I noticed that although it seemed to have imported previous sandboxes and their settings, it did not get rid of old Sandboxie, and attempting to open an application sandboxed with right-click menu produced an error I didn't think to screenshot at the time. I thought the problem must be that the command pointed to old Sandboxie, so I ran the uninstaller, which got part of the way through before crashing. It seems to have removed the old Sandboxie file from the Start menu, but not from Program Files. However, it also seems to have removed something important from Sandboxie Plus, because attempting to re-install, uninstall, or just use the program produces this error:

To Reproduce

1. Download & install a deprecated version of sandboxie classic
2. Download & install sandboxie plus
3. Attempt to uninstall sandboxie classic

Expected behavior That Sandboxie plus either overwrites sandboxie classic or installs as a new program.

Screenshots If applicable, add screenshots to help explain your problem.

Same error attempting to reinstall.

System and installed software (please provide the following information):

• Windows 10
• Sandboxie-Plus v0.7.2
• The last working version of Sandboxie without the issue: who friggen knows
• Your Security software / suites: Windows Defender.

[isaak654]

To Reproduce

1. Download & install a deprecated version of sandboxie classic

2. Download & install sandboxie plus

3. Attempt to uninstall sandboxie classic

Which deprecated version did you have before? Sandboxie 5.33.6 or an older one?

[CamStLouis]

To Reproduce

1. Download & install a deprecated version of sandboxie classic

2. Download & install sandboxie plus

3. Attempt to uninstall sandboxie classic

Which deprecated version did you have before? Sandboxie 5.33.6 or an older one?

If I knew I'd post it. I wasn't anticipating such a disaster of an install, so I didn't look at the version number. It managed to remove that much before crashing. Are there logs I could check detailing what was uninstalled?

[isaak654]

To Reproduce

1. Download & install a deprecated version of sandboxie classic

2. Download & install sandboxie plus

3. Attempt to uninstall sandboxie classic

Which deprecated version did you have before? Sandboxie 5.33.6 or an older one?

If I knew I'd post it. I wasn't anticipating such a disaster of an install, so I didn't look at the version number. It managed to remove that much before crashing. Are there logs I could check detailing what was uninstalled?

Some suggestions:

1) Check if you have a Sandboxie.LOG in C:\Windows (it may not contain nothing of relevant, though). 2) Check if you have a file called SandboxieInstall64.exe in C:\Windows\Installer in order to check the version in the properties. 3) Run this tool and check the version in the list of the executed programs back in time. 4) You could try to restore the old Sandboxie installation folder from a previous backup and check the version in the properties of SbieCtrl.exe. 5) Check this page with a list of older versions that could help your memory. 6) Maybe it could be possible to guess something from the content of C:\Windows\Sandboxie.ini, especially if you have very old deprecated settings there.

[CamStLouis]

None of that panned out, unfortunately. Looks like I just can't install this until I do a system restore planned for next month.

[DavidXanatos]

You shouldn't need a system restore start sandman.exe from a portable build (run setup and choose to extract) than in the sandbox menu use the maintenance sub menu to uninstall the driver and the service. than you should be able to reinstall sbie plus just fine

[isaak654]

You shouldn't need a system restore start sandman.exe from a portable build (run setup and choose to extract) than in the sandbox menu use the maintenance sub menu to uninstall the driver and the service. than you should be able to reinstall sbie plus just fine

Good call. Here it is:

You need to click on Stop All and then the advanced menu will be unlocked to uninstall the driver and the service.

[CamStLouis]

Edit: Rebooted (duh) and it worked - thanks very much for your time on this folks, I really appreciate your help. Registry/sys32 stuff isn't my strong suit so I appreciate getting to learn here.