Saturday, October 17, 2009

Uninstalling when you don't have an MSI

Many times you need to remove software from the clients but how do you do that when you installed it using an EXE?

Well the answer is quite simple, msiexe /x {GUID}

Where GUID is pulled from the registry of the client. If you look in the Resource explorer of the machine and find the software you want to remove then scroll over to the right it will have the GUID. This can found in the programs Registry settings also.

Lets look at Adobe Air uninstall key:

Adobe Air:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{00203668-8170-44A0-BE44-B632FA4D780F}

Uninstall string:MsiExec.exe /I{00203668-8170-44A0-BE44-B632FA4D780F}
------------------------------

Sometimes you can look in the Software section of the program such as for Adobe Reader
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\9.0\Installer
ENU_GUID:{AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-A91000000001}

Eitherway you now have several ways to find the uninstall method for the application.

It doesn't always work but at least you now have a starting point