
Launcher wipes entire SSD when uninstalling - Reedx
https://bugs.mojang.com/browse/MCL-14107
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geoelectric
OMG they reimplemented the infamous Myth 2 bug.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_II:_Soulblighter#Uninstal...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_II:_Soulblighter#Uninstall_bug)

~~~
tyleo
Two other users mentioned that this also happened with Half Life and Phantasy
Start.

Makes me wonder if a lot of software has this bug and we only hear about it
with the popular products. Also I wonder if something makes games especially
prone to this sort of issue.

~~~
geoelectric
The Myth one was particularly infamous because it’d wipe your entire C or D
drive if you installed to root, and because Bungie (doing the right thing)
spent nearly a million because they found it literally a day or two after
shipping final copies to stores and did a recall. I don’t think it actually
had any significant field impact.

As far as especially prone, custom installers were popular in the 90s (not
even sure the windows MSI framework was there yet for the classic examples)
and games get installed in weird places.

Weird stuff gets overlooked in testing. Nobody ever tried installing it
somewhere than Program Files is a reasonable guess, saying this as an expert
in software quality. Totally plausible an entire org would have that blind
spot.

...in the 90s. But anyone involved in old school PC gaming knows these
examples and should be planning for them in test. This was a noob mistake at a
business level, no lie.

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amaccuish
I see this as a failure of what a HN described elsewhere of securing the OS
against a user and not apps as well. Ideally all apps would be security
principals and appear in ACLs. Then say each file created couldn't be deleted
by another app unless it was present in the file ACL. I believe APPX packages
on Windows now do this, a new user is created for them.

~~~
em-bee
this is what linux package managers do. the package itself doesn't handle
deleting files at all, because the package manager, which tracks the files
created at install time takes care of it.

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AnotherGoodName
The original half life release did this too back in the day. It would lead to
the entirely of program files being deleted based on a default install.

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polygot
> _If you have installed Minecraft Dungeons in a custom directory, there is a
> chance uninstalling Minecraft Dungeons Launcher and /or the game will remove
> the entire parent directory and everything in it._

It doesn't erase the entire disk when uninstalling (just the parent
directory), however, the bug is still extremely troubling.

~~~
lagilogi
It would if you installed it right in C: without subfolder. It would
definitely was all your games if you installed in your games directory without
a subfolder of it's own.

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Kaze404
A similar thing happened with Phantasy Star Online 2 a while ago
[https://kotaku.com/my-feelings-on-pso2-issues-right-now-
at-l...](https://kotaku.com/my-feelings-on-pso2-issues-right-now-at-least-
they-hav-1250340374)

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dzaragozar
Please use the original title: Launcher wipes entire install location when
uninstalling

~~~
Reedx
The title was "Launcher wipes entire SSD when uninstalling" when this was
posted.

They updated it since then:
[https://bugs.mojang.com/browse/MCL-14107#changehistorydetail...](https://bugs.mojang.com/browse/MCL-14107#changehistorydetails_1603985)

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londons_explore
While annoying, this doesn't delete system restore info, so you can just
rollback the system to 5 minutes before the installation and get back all your
stuff.

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elitistphoenix
They probably should check those wildcards a bit more thoroughly.

~~~
tim--
This is not a wildcard issue. If you installed Minecraft Launcher in
"C:\Program Files", it would delete "C:\Program Files". It would not delete
the files the installer created.

~~~
pixl97
This kind of issue isnt that uncommon. I accidentally installed a program to
my desktop folder one time. And the uninstall just deleted it and all my
existing files. Windows didnt like that at all.

~~~
SlackingOff123
> Windows had not seen such bullshit before

