Whenever we want to uninstall a program, generally we go to control panel and we can easily uninstall a program feature from control panel to remove a program.
Sometimes you may get into a situation where your program is not listed in control panel. This may happen because of several reasons. You can refer this documentation for getting more information on why this happens.
I generally recommend below steps when such thing happens:
Option 1: Use Same MSI which was used to install the program
If you have old installer which was used to install the program, you can run that installer. It would show you maintenance dialogue to repair or remove the program if the program is already installed. Please note that this would work only if the same version of MSI is used.
Option 2: Use Product Code and MSIEXEC command
If first two options does not work, then the next option is to get the product id and then use MSIEXEC /x switch to uninstall the program.
What is product code ?
Product code is a unique id associated with a product. It uniquely identifies a product in windows registry. It is a GUID, specified while creating the installer for the product. It may be version specific (if you allow multiple versions of software to run in parallel on the same machine).
How to get product code ?
You can run below powershell command to get list of all programs and their product codes. From that list, find the program that you want to uninstall and copy it’s identifying number (which is in first column). The product code will be inside curly braces (e.g. {your-product-code} )
get-wmiobject Win32_Product | Format-Table IdentifyingNumber, Name
Found Product code, what’s next ?
Once you have the product code, you can use below command to uninstall the program. Let’s say, the product code is {your-product-code}, then the command would be as below:
msiexec /x {your-product-code}
And that’s it. You have successfully uninstalled it.
Hope this article helps you. If this article has helped you in any possible way, please do not forget to comment / like this blog. You can also suggest me the areas where you want more information. This would really encourage me to go on.
