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How do you turn off Windows policies, and how do I uninstall ZENworks?

Novell Cool Solutions: Question & Answer

Posted: 21 Jun 1999

Q:
David E. wrote: The ZENworks 1.1 starter pack has been a disaster on my LAN, and I cannot find any information about how to uninstall it and its side effects on my PCs. Since installation, many (but not all) of my workstations cannot access a DOS prompt (even though policies specifically allow it) and cannot run some Windows applications on the server (again, even though policies specifically allow those applications). All are running the 3.10 client software. I'm at the point of trying to reinstall Windows on some machines to recover access. Where can I (as a non-Fortune 500-user) get help REMOVING this mess from my system?

A:
It sounds to us like you might be having some problems removing a policy previously applied. You need to remember that Microsoft Windows policies have a couple of peculiarities by nature, and if you understand how they work, you won't have any problem removing them with ZEN. (You're not alone: this is the source of a lot of confusion, and we're actually developing a feature article about it. But this little snippet should help considerably right now. Here's the scoop:

To remove Microsoft Windows policies you must set up your policy to turn them off. Sounds simplistic, doesn't it? However, how to accomplish this is just a little confusing for new users.

The individual Windows policies have three states within the ZENworks policy:

  • ON
  • OFF
  • NEITHER (We do not think that NEITHER is the best term here. DO-NOT-TOUCH, IGNORE, DO-NOTHING or some other term might be better.)
Here is what ZENworks does with the three different settings:

  • ON (checked) = Turn on the setting. This involves writing one or more specific registry keys to indicate to Windows that the policy should be turned on.
  • OFF (unchecked) = Turn off the setting. This involves removing one or more specific registry keys to indicate to Windows that the policy should be turned off.
  • NEITHER (gray checked)= Do not add nor remove the setting. Do nothing. Leave this machine alone with regard to this setting.
When most people first start using these policies and turn some of these policies on, they invariably want to reverse what they just did in order to feel comfortable with how it all works. Their natural reaction to turn them off is to simply return to the policy and change the policy setting to the NEITHER state. They falsely believe that the next time the policy is run that the policy setting will be "uninstalled." However, what they are actually doing is telling ZENworks not to do anything with that policy setting (as you can see from the definitions above), therefore the policy stays ON. This is highly disconcerting for new users. It should be noted that this paradigm is not Novell's, it is Microsoft's. Those users who are familiar with Microsoft Windows' policies should not be the slightest bit confused by the paradigm.

To actually "uninstall" a policy setting that you have made, you must go to the policy and change the policy setting from ON to OFF, and then re-run the policy. You should find the settings in the ZENworks policy that have been turned on, change their state to OFF and then re-run the policy. It really is that simple, however it is not the most intuitive process for those who are unfamiliar with Windows policies.

As for uninstalling ZENworks (which you may not need to do once you get the policies to behave), right now the easiest way to uninstall the ZENworks client is to run UNC32 from the Admin subdir of the client install dir. Here's what the doc says about how to do that:

Using the Uninstall Utility
Procedure

  1. Locate and open the unc32.exe file on the CD-ROM. The file is in the products\win95\ibm_language \admin folder.
  2. (Conditional) If you want to remove any ODITM drivers installed on theworkstation, check the Remove Novell 32-bit ODI Adapter check box.
  3. This check box appears only if a 32-bit ODI adapter has been installed on the workstation.
  4. Click Continue.
  5. The Uninstall process begins.WARNING: Once you click Continue, the Uninstall process cannot be canceled. Do not try to stop the Uninstall process by turning off the machine. Doing so could result in a corrupted registry. If the registry becomes corrupt, errors will occur the next time you start the workstation.
  6. Run unc32.exe again to finish uninstalling the client and to clean up the registry.
  7. Click Reboot when the Uninstall process is complete.
Check out the doc for more info. Hope this helps!

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