You need to run it with the Office setup. The method is in my original posting
Create the XML as below saved as RemoveSkypeForBusiness.xml into C:\TEMP then run
“C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\microsoft shared\OFFICE15\Office Setup Controller\setup.exe” /config c:\temp\RemoveSkypeForBusiness.xml
That was for Office 2016. You will need to adjuts the comand line to match your version of Office.
Asking for email IDs is considered impolite in a forum (any forum, not just this one). We generally try to help, but we do that in this forum. There are several reasons for that, among them that sharing in the forum will help not only you, but anyone else who searches the forum can benefit from the discussions and solutions; and using the forum allows us to help, or not help, on our own terms rather than feeling like we’re “on-call” to you.
You can post screenshots to the forum if you want to. Just hit the “upload” button, or copy the image to the clipboard and then paste using CTRL-V. It Just Works! Give it a try. Here’s a picture of your post! With the “Upload” button circled in my response.
We’re happy to help you figure out BigFix, but understand that everyone here on the forum is volunteering. Most of us, including myself, do not work for IBM. For any IBM people who are here, are on their own time. This forum is not part of their job function.
If #3 is not clear, none of us are getting paid to be here, or to uninstall Skype for Business or Lync. I suspect that you are. You will be expected to put in some effort; in general what’s expected is that you figure out how to do something, and we help you do it in BigFix.
That said, what you need to figure out is
How to identify that Lync / Skype are present. You need to know the registry keys involved in detecting whether the product is present at all, and if the uninstall command lines are different between versions, figure out how to detect what versions you have.
How to uninstall the product, or at least the versions you don’t want anymore. You’ll need to know the command line uninstall, including hiding any “Click next to Continue” dialogs, to create a “silent uninstall”.
As posted earlier in this thread, Office is a bit complicated in that you may need to create an XML-formatted answer file to execute the “silent uninstall”. You also need to understand that to uninstall the product, you need to run the command in an Elevated Command Prompt. And you definitely need to know what that is.
Thanks a ton Sir for explanation, I will request you to please let me know if you have any idea about BigFix Training videos and documents.
If you have any links to Videos & Documents then please share with me.
Hi Sir,
I am also sharing you screenshot. 
I think i am missing something here.
It looks like your scenario has an installation of Lync/Skype that is not a part of the Office suite so you may not need to use the xml definition approach to remove the Office component. You may find the links provided earlier to remove the application may be more pertinent to your situation. What you need to do is research how to remove the software via command line (ie what would you type at a CMD prompt to remove the software in the way your need) then you can use that same command in an action. Invoking the removal isn’t native “Bigfix” knowledge, you’re just using Bigfix to invoke the commands you would have to use to uninstall the software. You should be able to find the uninstall command in the registry keys that pertain to Lync/Skype.
First you need to figure out how to uninstall the software in question on the command line interactively. This step has nothing to do with BigFix at all and has entirely to do with the software in question. You would want to consult vendor documentation and other sites on how to do this, and try various things until this works. Even launching the right uninstaller from the command line is a good start.
The second step is to uninstall the software in question on the command line silently / non-interactively. This may be identical to the step above, or may require slight tweaks to the command. The key is that from the time of entering the command, to the software being fully uninstalled, there can’t be any dialog boxes that require user input at all! This step also has nothing to do with BigFix and is generally going to be done in an almost identical way for ALL similar tools to BigFix. Getting this right completely on your own often requires quite a bit of experimentation, installing and uninstalling the software on a test machine over and over again. Ideally you’d find an example for the software in question to help get this step to work faster. The uninstall string in the registry can be a great help.
Only after the above works do you then adapt that into BigFix actionscript, which is generally straightforward, relatively easy, and other than some edge cases, a very similar process for uninstalling any software with BigFix.
The last step, and technically optional, is to write relevance to detect that the software is installed so that the uninstaller action in bigfix is only relevant when the software is installed. This not only helps bigfix detect when the software is there, but it also helps bigfix know when the uninstall was successful by letting it detect when it is no longer there. For almost all windows software, this is a relevance statement that inspects the Uninstall keys of the windows registry. Don’t worry about this step until all other steps are completed, but once they are, this step is what makes BigFix able to be intelligent about what it does.
You really need to figure out steps 1 & 2 on your own. We may help if we have experience with the software in question or can find some examples for you, but we are really here to help with the rest of the process, and not so much steps 1 & 2.
Often the trick to learning BigFix is not to get caught up in the BigFix part of it, and instead figure it out on the command line as if BigFix wasn’t in the picture at all. Once that part is done, the BigFix work begins.
This post is also duplicated here: Removal of SKB and Lync
Hi All,
I need one help on BigFix.
I recently started using Bigfix.
I have one task which i need to complete it asap.
Currently we are using Skype for business and Microsoft Lync in our office for IM purpose.
Now the agenda is to remove Skype for Business & Lync from all the comptuers and installation of Microsoft teams in All PCs.
So if any can help me here then it would be great.
Adding one of my friend on this thread @jgstew
Thanks in advance
I don’t know what version you are trying to uninstall, but there is content on bigfix.me that you can recycle:
I would recommend figuring out the installation of Microsoft Teams before completing the uninstallation of Skype/Lync, especially if Skype/Lync are still functional.
The fixlet that @jhickok linked could be adapted if you are uninstalling a different version of the app.
Also if i want to check below task then how i can check through Bigfix console or through Web reports-
Thanks & Regards
Wakkas Ahmad
Web Reports only has access to info that can also be seen in the BigFix Console. You need to make sure you can see the data in the console first, then you can run reports against that data in Web Reports.
Generally it is best to view the computer summary screen in the Console for a particular computer that is one of the ones you want the info for, ideally one that has Skype or Lync in this case, then look through all of the results there. If you don’t find what you are looking for on a single computer, than that may mean that you need to check a different computer, or that you don’t have an analysis activated that brings back the data you are looking for and need to address that. If you DO find what you are looking for, then the heading of that section will tell you what analysis to seek out to see this same info for ALL computers rather than just a single computer.
There is a built in analysis for this. Are you only concerned with Windows OS? or Mac or Linux as well?
Make sure the analysis Application Information (Windows) is activated in the BES Inventory and License site, otherwise there are other analyses on BigFix.Me that can get this same info.
The default analysis view in the console will be unimpressive and look unhelpful:
But the summary view will show you the data in general:
But you can view the data per computer for all computers more easily with Web Reports once you verify that it is there and know where to look in Web Reports.
Hi Team,
I just uploading the screenshot of my product which i am trying to remove.
If you know how to do that then please help me here. Its pending from long time.
Not for nothing, @wakkas, but you’ve already asked this question before: Need to remove Skype for Business & Lync
Several steps were provided to you in that thread; if that’s not enough, you seriously need to consider attending BigFix training sessions on the product itself, as well as relevance and ActionScript writing…
Hi Sir,
Unfortunately no solution worked for me till now. I shocked that we have thousand of expert here in this forum but no one willing to complete this task which will not even take more that 10 minutes.
What is the use of knowledge if we cant share it with any new IT person.
We all have jobs to perform; your job has to include gaining the competency you need to adequately perform yours, instead of relying on others to do your job for you…
The tools have been provided for you in the other thread. Now it’s up to you to adapt those tools and use them as needed in your place of work.
If you feel you need professional assistance, IBM does offer this in the form of the Accelerated Value Program, but this costs money of course.
Greetings team,
I have tries this command to removal “C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE16\Office Setup Controller\setup.exe” /uninstall LYNCENTRY /dll OSETUP.DLL .
There should be, yes. It is different for every app, but generally similar for apps installed / uninstalled using MSI’s. In either case, you should consult Microsoft’s documentation for silent install / uninstall of their applications on the command line.
You have been given many options to do this, and the one you are trying isn’t one of them. It probably would work if you have the right switches, but did you try uninstalling using MSIExec like mentioned above?
It is very useful for you to tell us what you tried and what didn’t work.
Also, what you are asking for has nothing to do with BigFix and everything to do with silently installing & uninstalling software. Only after you get this working on the command line is BigFix really come into play.
This should take very little time, but this forum is not here to do it for you, it is to teach you how to do it yourself and provide assistance along the way.
I collapsed the duplicate threads into 1.
you clearly should have a key in the registry that should be labeled something like " Microsoft Lync Basic 2013"
once you find the “DisplayName” or a key entry that identifies the application as unique int eh registry for your action script you should enter something like this: which it was mention before. but here it goes anyways. this is very straight forward. uninstalling an application that is stand alone.
waithidden "{pathname of system folder}\MSIExec.exe" /x {name of key whose (value "DisplayName" of it as string as lowercase starts with "microsoft lync") of key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall" of x64 registry} /qn
as per the relevance to target only those systems
name of key whose (value "DisplayName" of it as string as lowercase starts with "microsoft lync") of key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall" of x64 registry
I do recommend you to look into this:
IBM BigFix Content Development
Code: IS730G
https://www-03.ibm.com/services/learning/ites.wss/zz-en?pageType=course_description&cc=&courseCode=IS730G
It sure helped me a lot. I dont fell as lost anymore. tho I have seen some neat stuff done in the forum.
