I posted a problem about most modules failing their install on a new installation.

Now I find in the DB, despite these failures, all the various tables and such for these modules -- all the forum tables, repository tables, etc. I'd guess I'll find sprocs as well.

All installs really should be transacted, should they not?  On failure, there should be nothing left of any changes made (in the DB, web.config or anyplace else).

Either that, or they must be able to detect and incomplete install and be able to undo it, fix it or whatever. Is that what they do, or should I expect to have to restart my install (in addition to whatever action is necessary to fix failures of module install)?

Note: In case you haven't seen my other post, almost all modules fail to install, including the basic "HTML" module, and thus I can not get past that install page.

I think I may not have been clear enough -- first off, these modules are the ones included with the distribution, and are presumably up to standards for uninstall. Secondly, as stated, these modules failed their installs, and left behind all kinds of database objects.  It is impossible to uninstall them, because they never completed install!

Really, there is very little, if any thought, needed -- when adding database objects, all such should be done in a single transaction (there are possibly exceptions, but based on the objects I see, this should not be a problem). If a SQL Server transaction were used, then any technical failure, such as occurred here, would result in no effect on the database as the transaction would never be committed.

I am not talking about partial rollbacks -- you start a transaction, add all the database objects, then commit. If it fails, you rollback. If it REALLY fails, you at least have the uncommitted transaction, and no affect on the committed database.