I can do a clean re-install. However, I have done many re-installs, and I suspect for the “clean” part that there is some garbage in my registry that has mess up a re-install. So once I have official directions on how to do a registry cleanout, I will proceed. But again, no urgency on my end.
And yes, Brave app is in “Program Files”, the Updater is in “Program Files (x86)”.
That’s my honest concern, because when I setup two new Windows 10 and 11 VM’s and install Brave, open it, close it, then uninstall it, quite a bit is left in the registry, and on the disk as well. Not a lot of cleanup actually occurs. There’s a lot of entries that remain behind, services left installed (while some do get uninstalled). I know it’s not a Brave issue per say, but it is an issue with Omaha. (Which is Google developed, and what Chrome/Edge/Brave actually use to install, though with Edge you never see it because it’s pre-installed to the OS, you just see the remnants via the update service itself).
Hi, I’m the developer at Brave who’s mostly responsible for the Omaha integration.
First a brief point about registry keys and services being left behind: Yes, some registry keys stay around forever after uninstallation. This behavior comes from Google’s implementation. But there is also cleanup that occurs some time after uninstalling Brave. Specifically, when Brave is uninstalled but the updater (“Omaha”) is still on the system, then after a few hours, the updater runs, sees that Brave is no longer installed, and uninstalls itself and its own services. So, there are some services and registry entries that only disappear a few hours after uninstalling Brave.
@rgrindley if I understood correctly, then you still have C:\Program Files (x86)\BraveSoftware\Update\BraveUpdate.exe on your system. Could you try the following steps?
- Press the Start Menu button
- Type “cmd”
- Right-click on the entry that appears and select “Run as administrator”. So you’ll run the Windows Command Prompt as admin.
- Paste the following into the command prompt:
“C:\Program Files (x86)\BraveSoftware\Update\BraveUpdate.exe" /uninstall - Press Enter.
If it worked, then the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\BraveSoftware\Update should disappear from your system in the next minute or so. Then, you can uninstall and re-install Brave as per @clifton’s instructions.
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Current state:
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Program Files (x86)\BraveSoftware folder does NOT exist
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appwiz.cpl shows Brave NOT installed
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Program Files\BraveSoftware DOES exist, and Brave runs
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When I exit Brave, I see two stranded processes called “setup.exe”, with Description as Brave Installer. I manually killed these processes.
I am going to manually wipe out the Program Files\BraveSoftware folder, then try a clean install.
BTW, there are still a bunch of registry entries like HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\BraveSoftware, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\BraveFile and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\BravePDF. Should I delete these before the re-install?
Absolutely stoked to see the dev that is working with Omaha responding. That makes me happy. Like mentioned I do feel this bug is deep in Google’s own code since Chrome and Edge are affected by the same issue (which is funny that Microsoft uses Omaha to update Edge, not Windows Update, and yea, this happens there too, same service de-registering, and missing update folders (sometimes, usually the updater is still actually there), nearly 1:1 identical to brave, even the same error codes).
This users issue though is a bit more than missing services, if BraveSoftware is missing from Program Files (x86), that’s a bit more bonkers that Omaha isn’t touching this directly, not registering in appwiz.cpl, yet is installing the main binary. (What in the world did Google do here? lol)
Re-installed. Did NOT fiddle with any reg keys. Will see how it goes.
Didn’t take long - exact same thing happened again.
So in this users case, when I had them reimport the missing keys from my own machine, it fixed their updater immediately: Brave Updating Fails - #26 by MasterLink
So it does seem IF the users updater is still present, my .reg file does fix the updater entirely and services start working again. Sadly of course, in @rgrindley 's case, they found the updater is missing from Program Files (x86), so even if they imported my .reg key, it’s pointing to an executable that’s not on the disk, so for them the fix won’t work.
Seems related in some way, but perhaps not entirely (or maybe there is a similar root cause, but different outcomes?) I’m going to ask the other user if Brave shows up in appwiz.cpl just out of curiosity (maybe that’s a root cause?)
So as it stands, users that do have the updater still present can fix it with my registry patch above in this thread and the other, but if the updater is not present in Program Files (x86), this isn’t going to fix it.
@rgrindley which installer do you use to install Brave? Is it the roughly 1 MB online installer you can download from brave.com, or a different one?
The one linked to by @clifton.
Thanks. Do you have antivirus software running? If yes, do you see whether it maybe quarantined some of Brave’s files?
Checked, AV has not quarantined any files.
I just re-installed after coming back from break.
And my updater is in Program Files(x86). Also, I checked the three registry keys, “brave”, “BraveElevationService” and “bravem” are all there, and seem to have the correct values.
Maybe a new year brings luck…
I certainly hope so. The fact that all 3 came back yet Brave hasn’t been updated yet since middle of December, I went and redownloaded the installer for this version just out of curiosity if the installer itself was modified in any way (as in silently updated to patch a bug).
Turns out, maybe that was the version increment on the 19th of December, just 2 days after the 17th’s release of Brave, and really was left out of the notes. I can only assume when we go so long without hearing much. 
Anyway I noticed this. This is the Brave installers date for the latest version:
But then when they responded to you and you responded back in December when you explained what was happening and what wasn’t happening (Brave missing from multiple locations while being installed and not knowing it was installed), all happened on that same day:
I’m certainly gonna connect the dots on that one. (Time of the compile date doesn’t match, but being you reinstalled when you’ve been doing this over and over again and did nothing really different, I bet Omaha was fixed.)
Hi MasterLink, we didn’t make any recent changes in the Omaha update client itself. But I’m hoping @rgrindley’s issue will stay resolved 
It un-installed again same day, but I tried completely re-downloading the installer from brave.com and re-installed. One thing I did notice is that after the install, the three registry entries (brave, bravem and braveUpdater) showed up in ControlSet001, but NOT in CurrentControlSet. I rebooted, and now they show up in both 001 and Current. Been a couple of days now, and so far no un-install…
I don’t understand why it keeps uninstalling 
If there is some kind of diagnostic trace/info I can gather let me know.
The only lingering evidence is that when it happens, there are two processes called “setup.exe” left running (one parent of the other), while all Brave processes are gone. Can I send some kind of signal/interrupt to setup.exe to force it to dump a trace?
Go to https://alter.systems and ask:
What process on Windows OS, could uninstall brave.exe without the knowledge of the user? At the Brave Community, one user discovers that brave.exe is uninstalled several times during each day.
Useful Windows OS applications: