[exim] Debian Problem or Generic Exim Problem?

Hi.

Where does a freshly installed Exim4 package check to see whether it
is being installed in place over a previously existing Exim4 installation?

Background:
When I first encountered the problem the missing exim4.conf file, I
speculated that perhaps there had been something wrong with
installtion. So, I removed the installed exim4, and re-installed it
from scratch. During the first installation that configuration utility
started up automatically during the installation, whereas on the
second attemt - even though I had removed the first installation - the
configuraiton utility did not start up by itself, and - furthermore -
the values that I had entered during the first installation were
preserved and I continued having the same missing exim4.conf problem.
I discovered that removing the previous installation had left the
/var/lib/exim4 and /etc/exim4 directories and files in place, and -
guessig that that had prevented the configuration from starting up
during installation - I removed these directories manually.
Now, the configuration utility still does not come up, Exim4 does not
create these directories as it originally did, and attempting to
reconfigure Exim fails, because the configuration utility cannot find
these directories and subdirectories, when it attempts save the
configuration information.

I need to remove whatever it is that is telling Exim4 not to create
the directories and start up the configuration utility.

Any ideas?
TIA,
Joseph

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