topic Re: Automated Uninstall of Webex Meetings Desktop Application - Possib in Webex Meetings and Webex App

Automated Uninstall of Webex Meetings Desktop Application - Possible?

thehappyadmin — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 21:52:22 GMT

It appears that the Webex meetings application can be installed by a user but requires an admin to uninstall it. This application is the webex.exe program that gets downloaded when a user joins a meeting. Anyone can replicate this with the Webex Test Meeting.

The uninstall string in the user registry is as follows:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\ActiveTouchMeetingClient]
"UninstallString"="C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\WebEx\atcliun.exe" /x MEETINGS LANGUAGE=EN

As we can see, this program is installed per user, not per computer. The uninstall launches the atcliun.exe program.

If the atcliun.exe program is not launched with the RUNASADMIN flag, it appears to automatically relaunch itself with this flag and elevates the process. This is the part which requires an admin. (Interestingly, if you launch the atcliun.exe program WITH the RUNASADMIN flag, this actually bypasses the elevation...probably a bug)

Because this is installed per user, I'm now left without a way to launch a script in a the background to perform the uninstall on user login, etc.

Cisco also provides a Webex Meetings Uninstall tool available here. I can script the program to run on computer boot but it does not remove all traces of Webex Meetings. (most notable, it leaves entries in the user registry uninstall area so that it still shows up as being installed). I suspect that the tool has bugs that prevent a full uninstall.

So now I cannot uninstall the program via a regular user when logged in and I cannot uninstall the program on computer boot when running the uninstall tool as an elevated admin user (perhaps the user registry hives are not loaded? Not sure.).

What is an admin to do to get this program uninstalled? Who designed a system such that a user can install something and only an admin can uninstall it?

PS: The reason we want to remove the program is we have found some older versions, when installed, prevent current versions from running. If we automatically removed the program, this would prevent manual intervention for users.

PPS: I'm only interested in the very limited scope of the issue defined in this discussion (ie: not interested in discussion using the "Join from Browser" option, installing via their webex.msi, etc).

Re: Automated Uninstall of Webex Meetings Desktop Application - Possible?

Fritz_H — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 13:07:59 GMT

@thehappyadmin

Just asking: are you sure that those users do/did not have local-admin rights?
Because: I have been working at a large company once, which offered to enable local-admin-rights for a limited time (e.g. 1 day) for special users who had a business-need to install/un-install software every now and then. (Manager´s approval required, of course).

Re: Automated Uninstall of Webex Meetings Desktop Application - Possible?

thehappyadmin — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 13:29:44 GMT

@Fritz_H wrote:
@thehappyadmin
Just asking: are you sure that those users do/did not have local-admin rights?

Yes, the users do not have any admin rights.

Re: Automated Uninstall of Webex Meetings Desktop Application - Possib

daviderocco — Tue, 02 Nov 2021 11:32:53 GMT

I have this issue too and it is extremely annoying.

I installed it as a standard user with a standard account. Who designed a system such that a user can install something and only an admin can uninstall it?

Re: Automated Uninstall of Webex Meetings Desktop Application - Possib

tjacobs42 — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 12:04:29 GMT

Very good explanation of the problem, which still exists here. Did you ever get some kind of answer or even a solution to this?

Torsten.