Uninstall and clean retest

Choose the cleanup scope first

Creating or updating cleanup tooling is not permission to uninstall anything. Inventory first, show the exact proposed targets and preserved resources, then ask for confirmation before stopping processes or changing installed state.

User intent	Procedure
Exercise the dev build's WSL uninstall engine	Dev-build engine uninstall below.
Clean reinstall, hard wipe, remove native Gateway/MXC or all managed llama.cpp state	Read HARD-CLEAN.md before acting. The dev engine path alone is not a native hard clean.
Demo/test device without Copilot	Copy scripts\clean-uninstall.ps1 to the device. Run with Windows PowerShell 5.1; default is preview, -ConfirmDestructive applies. See standalone usage.
Ordinary installed-app removal	Settings > Apps > Installed apps. See docs\SETUP.md, Uninstalling. Retained state is intentional.

The standalone script's -All flag enables dev state, receipt-backed cached models, and owned release/dev WSL distro removal. It does not imply -ConfirmDestructive or discover custom profile paths. Review and confirm the expanded scope first. Use -All -ExcludeCachedModels to preserve external shared cached models while selecting the other built-in scopes. The exclusion overrides -RemoveCachedModels too; models inside deleted profiles or WSL filesystems are still removed. For explicitly identified leftover Windows isolated-profile registrations, use -RemoveIsolatedProfilePath with exact paths. Preview first; confirmed removal requires elevation as the same user and accepts only unloaded, non-special S-1-5-110 profiles. -All never selects these automatically. See HARD-CLEAN.md for the distinction between profile cleanup and native session teardown.

Existing helpers are narrower than a hard clean:

• scripts\dev-reset-rebuild-launch.ps1 resets production tray state and can wipe the production WSL distro. It mutates by default; use -WhatIf to preview.
• scripts\reset-openclaw-wsl-validation-state.ps1 is a production-WSL validation reset with backups and a -ConfirmDestructiveClean gate. It is not a native Gateway/MXC package teardown.
• scripts\_uninstall-helpers.ps1 supplies utilities, not a complete uninstaller.

Do not chain these helpers together as an "all" wipe. Their identities, backup behavior, process selection, and WSL scope differ.

Dev-build engine uninstall

OpenClaw.Tray.WinUI.exe embeds the SetupEngine and accepts --uninstall directly, so no installer is required to exercise this path; a local dotnet build output works. This walks a real (not just installed-via-Inno-Setup) uninstall of dev/test state: WSL gateway distro, openclaw CLI inside WSL, gateway systemd service, Tailscale state, and the tray's AppData files.

This is destructive. Confirm with the user before the final --confirm-destructive run, and call out anything it will touch that isn't disposable dev state (e.g. a WSL distro or Tailscale session actually in use).

Procedure

1. Build with the dev identity, for the matching architecture. .\build.ps1 alone defaults to release identity even in a Debug configuration, and a release-identity exe would unregister the real OpenClawGateway distro and mutate %APPDATA%\OpenClawTray instead of the -Dev copies below (the output path is identical either way, so nothing later in this procedure would catch that mistake). Always build with -DevBuild, and verify the marker before proceeding:

   .\build.ps1 -DevBuild   # skip only if you already built with -DevBuild
   
   $arm64 = [System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeInformation]::OSArchitecture -eq
       [System.Runtime.InteropServices.Architecture]::Arm64
   $arch = if ($arm64) { 'win-arm64' } else { 'win-x64' }
   $outDir = "src\OpenClaw.Tray.WinUI\bin\Debug\net10.0-windows10.0.22621.0\$arch"
   $exe = "$outDir\OpenClaw.Tray.WinUI.exe"
   
   $identity = (Get-Content "$outDir\app-identity.txt" -Raw).Trim()
   if ($identity -ne 'dev') { throw "Build output identity is '$identity', not 'dev' - rebuild with -DevBuild." }
   
   $pathOverrides = 'OPENCLAW_TRAY_DATA_DIR',
       'OPENCLAW_TRAY_APPDATA_DIR',
       'OPENCLAW_TRAY_LOCALAPPDATA_DIR',
       'OPENCLAW_TRAY_LOCAL_DATA_DIR',
       'OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR'
   $activeOverrides = $pathOverrides | Where-Object {
       -not [string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace([Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable($_))
   }
   if ($activeOverrides) {
       throw "Refusing destructive uninstall while path overrides are set: $($activeOverrides -join ', ')"
   }
   

2. Stop only the dev instance, by PID. A background OpenClaw.Tray.WinUI.exe (e.g. the tray icon) holds its own log/journal files open, which makes later steps fail to delete the AppData Logs directory. A release-identity tray can share the same process name, so match on the resolved $exe path and confirm before stopping; this repo kills processes by PID only, never by name (see scripts/dev-reset-rebuild-launch.ps1):

   $exePath = (Resolve-Path $exe).Path
   $devProcs = Get-Process OpenClaw.Tray.WinUI -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
       Where-Object { $_.Path -eq $exePath }
   $devProcs | Format-Table Id, Path -AutoSize   # confirm these are the dev instance before stopping
   $devProcs | ForEach-Object { Stop-Process -Id $_.Id -Force }
   

3. Dry-run first, capturing output and exit code (a bare shell invocation can swallow the exit code for a WinUI apphost; use Start-Process -Wait -PassThru):

   $p = Start-Process -FilePath $exe -ArgumentList '--uninstall','--dry-run' -PassThru -Wait `
       -RedirectStandardOutput out.log -RedirectStandardError err.log
   $p.ExitCode
   Get-Content out.log
   

   Review the "Would rollback: ..." lines for each of the ~37 steps. Note the --data-dir / --distro-name printed at the top; dev-branch builds use OpenClawTray-Dev / OpenClawGateway-Dev, separate from a real install's OpenClawTray / OpenClawGateway. Confirm that the printed data directories are exactly %APPDATA%\OpenClawTray-Dev and %LOCALAPPDATA%\OpenClawTray-Dev. Stop if they point anywhere else.

4. Check for real state the dry-run doesn't surface, e.g. a live WSL distro:

   wsl -l -v
   

   If the distro named in step 3's output is present, flag to the user that it will be unregistered (wsl --unregister), permanently deleting its filesystem.

   The dry-run only logs rollback step IDs, not the concrete files each step would touch. If it matters to the user's situation, inspect %APPDATA%\OpenClawTray-Dev\ directly before consenting (gateway registry, windows-node-context.json, Local AI config, Tailscale state).

5. Confirm with the user, then run the real uninstall the same way:

   $p = Start-Process -FilePath $exe -ArgumentList '--uninstall','--confirm-destructive' -PassThru -Wait `
       -RedirectStandardOutput out2.log -RedirectStandardError err2.log
   $p.ExitCode
   Get-Content out2.log
   

6. Verify the specific artifacts each rollback step is supposed to clean up: not the AppData roots themselves. TrayArtifactCleanup (registry/files/settings only, no WSL calls) and the WSL/gateway rollback steps between them reset or remove selected files and records in place; neither deletes %APPDATA%\OpenClawTray[-Dev] or %LOCALAPPDATA%\OpenClawTray[-Dev], so asserting those roots are gone will report a successful run as failed:

   wsl -l -v   # target distro should no longer be listed
   # The current run's own log/journal remain under Logs\Setup (they are open during
   # cleanup); success = that directory holds only uninstall-engine-<this-run> files
   Get-ChildItem "$env:APPDATA\OpenClawTray-Dev\Logs\Setup"   # only this run's uninstall-engine-* files expected
   Test-Path "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\OpenClawTray-Dev\Logs"   # should be False
   Test-Path "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\OpenClawTray-Dev\run.marker"  # should be False
   Test-Path "$env:APPDATA\OpenClawTray-Dev\exec-approvals.json"  # should be False
   Test-Path "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\OpenClawTray-Dev\windows-node-context.json"  # should be False, if it existed
   # settings.json: GatewayUrl removed; EnableNodeMode/AutoStart reset to false unless
   # other gateway records remain
   # Get-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run' -Name OpenClawTray-Dev -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
   # should error/be absent (autostart registry key removed)
   

   The current run's own active log and journal under %APPDATA%\OpenClawTray-Dev\Logs\Setup are expected to remain: the Setup Engine still holds them open when TrayArtifactCleanup runs, so the Failed to delete AppData Logs directory warning is normal. A Failed to delete... warning naming any other file, or leftover files from earlier runs, means a process is still holding them open (see step 2).

Notes

• Log and journal for each run are printed at the end of stdout, under %APPDATA%\OpenClawTray[-Dev]\Logs\Setup\uninstall-engine-<timestamp>.jsonl.
• For a real installed app (not a dev build), the user-facing path is Settings → Apps → Installed apps → OpenClaw Companion → Uninstall; see docs/SETUP.md#uninstalling and the README's Uninstall section. The procedure above exercises the underlying CLI path directly. For a native or full clean-retest workflow, use HARD-CLEAN.md.