Since the Windows XP days, Windows Installers (.msi files), including InstallShield installers (which is just a bootstrap for MSI) has taken around five times longer to uninstall an application than other installers. The same is also usually true about installing.
Why do they still take this long, and why do people still use MSI for installing? For example:
Uninstall VLC – takes around 5 seconds.
Uninstall XYZ – launches "Preparing to remove…" followed by a 15 second delay.
All it's doing is removing files and cleaning the registry (which may include COM registrations), so why does it take so long?
Best Answer
Windows installer first systematically creates a system restore point, which is a quite slow operation.
Also from the article entitled, appropriately, "Windows Installer sucks", an excerpt:
I also add that Windows installer keeps all information in the registry, which is not the world's fastest database.