Can't uninstall ActivePerl 5.32

I installed ActivePerl 5.32 on my Windows 10 PC, and I don’t see any way to uninstall it. There’s nothing in the control panel to uninstall, and the Start menu items don’t include an uninstall item. I tried re-installing with -f but that didn’t help. I tried running the command ‘state clean uninstall’ but that doesn’t uninstall the product. How can I uninstall the product?

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It’s not installed. It’s “Activated”, and that means the installed programs registry entries know nothing about it.

An “activated” or “activated default” project is a virtual environment (in your AppData folder), so it’s easy to delete manually without impacting anyone else on the system.

The “state clean” command can be used to clean up activated projects unless you “deployed” them. Deployed projects are neither “Installed” in the traditional sense, nor activated in the usual sense because they are detached.
\https://docs.activestate.com/platform/state/commands/#utilities

The “state clean uninstall” will have also removed the State Tool, so naturally it won’t be useful for any further removals. At this point, you’re probably best off to manually delete the Perl folder and use RegEdit to clean up any registry entries. (Discussion here, for similar case with installed Python)

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“state clean uninstall” does not remove the state command or anything else as indicated by the message.

PS C:\Windows\system32> state --version ActiveState CLI by ActiveState Software Inc. License BSD 3 Version 0.28.2-SHAbdac00e Revision bdac00ecb11f14510820d58651e9bc85eb4d3741 Branch release Built Mon May 10 2021 23:02:42 +0000 GMT

I can’t believe there’s no simple way to remove all the files that were installed. Help!

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Please fix the ActivePerl 5.32 page at ActivePerl 5.32 Documentation which says you can uninstall with the ActivePerl-<version>.exe command. This command does not appear to exist.

No, it doesn’t. The whole “Setup Wizard” section is boiler-plate from older versions that doesn’t apply to 5.32 or 5.34 right now. There are no downloadable installers for 5.32 yet, so you can’t run them again to use the “remove” option from the installer.

To remove a build installed by the State Tool, use the “state clean” command to remove cached instances.
https://docs.activestate.com/platform/state/commands/#state-clean-cache

That doesn’t get rid of all the files that ActiveState Perl creates on your computer including regedit changes, Startup changes, environment variables changes like Path, etc. How do you get back to the same condition before ActiveState Perl was installed?

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I want it to all files to be removed too, please answer

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The State Tool is not a traditional installer. If you did a “state activate”, it doesn’t make any of those changes. “activate” installs to a virtual environment that is only available to the user that installed it, and is only available when it is activated. Multiple versions of Perl can be installed at the same time, and they cannot interfere with each other, or any version of Perl installed by someone else.

I want my PC back to the way it was prior to installing, activating it - no trace - no history - no files - no virtual environments - nothing - make it gone

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Is there a way to clean the system of ActivePerl?

This is completely unprofessional. No method of uninstallation should be considered malware.

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They’re trying to force everyone to use “active runtimes” instead of a normal installer so they can charge you a thousand dollars per year for having more than one runtime. Basically your options are

  • Use 5.28 which still has an installer (but keep in mind the installed ppm won’t work anymore for installing new perl modules, because again it will throw an error and force you to use the new state tool)
  • Use something else like StrawberryPerl since that’s actually free

For uninstalling 5.32, you’ll have to hunt down the folders and registry entries yourself.
For future reference I’d backup the registry before and after installation so you know what was changed.

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There are manuals posted with all the available commands.
https://docs.activestate.com/platform/state/install/#uninstalling-the-state-tool
You might need to run
state update
first to make sure you don’t have an older version of the State Tool that won’t uninstall itself.

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5.28 has no PPM. Even the versions, like 5.22, that had one in the installer may be unable to use it because the PPM client doesn’t support TLS 1.2 or higher.

The “Normal Installer”(our old products or Strawberry) will give you a snapshot that never updates. Never. That might be fine for a hobbyist.

As I mentioned above, if you used “state activate” there are no registry entries.

hi the solution mentioned above works, if you encounter an error in the terminal as a simple user, you just have to apply the command: “state clean uninstall”.

If you come across this topic is that you are looking for the solution to reboot your “Linux”, “Debian” bricked system then you will just have to purge python to reinstall it, to do the same with the graphics driver and the GRUB.

Do not reinstall your system too quickly, always try to save your data first, for months it works.

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On Windows 10 I tried “state clean uninstall” and was rewarded with this:
Something Went Wrong
x Cannot uninstall the State Tool while in an activated state. Please deactivate and try again.
As if I know what “deactivate” means, or even “state” for that matter.
Windows commandment: If thou providest an installer, thou shalt also provide an uninstaller.

On trying state clean uninstall I get

Something Went Wrong
────────────────────
x Failed to remove PATH entries from environment
x Failed to remove all State Tool files in installation directory C:\Users\myUser\AppData\Local\ActiveState\StateTool\release

Any pointers?

You might have the State Service running. If it’s running, you can State clean to remove a running binary from the release folder.