Having to manually remove Noah from a machine is rare troubleshooting step, but in some cases a necessary last troubleshooting step.

The following steps will give a clean start for a Noah 4 installation:

1. If Noah can launch, and the machine is the server or has a local database, export the database from Noah to an NHAX file or Backup from the Console.

2.If Noah is not functioning, the renamed database files in step 6 below can serve as a backup.

3. Close Noah 4 

4. Uninstall Noah 4 from Control Panel, Programs 

5. Uninstall all Noah modules, the Journal, Noah 4 Audiogram, and Questionnaire

6a. If using Noah 4.15 or a later version of Noah:

  • in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\HIMSA Shared folder rename NOAHDatabaseCoreSQLite.db to NOAHDatabaseCoreSQLite.old
  • delete all files in the HIMSA Shared folder except the renamed database file, the Noahlink folder if present, and the noah4.lf 

6b. If using Noah 4.14.2 or an earlier version of Noah:

  • in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\HIMSA Shared folder rename NOAHCfgDatabase.sdf to NOAHCfgDatabase.old
  • also rename the NOAHDatabaseCoreSqlCompact.sdf to NOAHDatabaseCoreSqlCompact.old
  • delete all files in the HIMSA Shared folder except the renamed database files, the Noahlink folder if present, and the noah4.lf 

7. In the Noah 4 folder located at C:\Program Files (x86)\HIMSA, delete all contents except the backup folder if present.

8. At C:\ProgramData\HIMSA rename HIMSA to HIMSAold

9. Install Noah 4

10. Launch Noah

11. Import your NHAX file, Restore backup, or stop services and rename the .old database files created in Step 6, back to .sdf or .db depending on your Noah version (Step 6a or 6b).

*If you are going back from Noah 4.15 to 4.14 or earlier, see more details here:
How do I restore a backup from an older version of Noah to version 4.15 and higher?

12. Browse to the C:\ProgramData\HIMSAold\Noah\Backup\NoahClient and grab a backup of the client settings.xml file that contains the locations of modules in Noah.

13. Rename the empty client setting .xml at C:\ProgramData\HIMSA\Noah to clientsettings.clean and copy in the backup

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