How can I uninstall an application using PowerShel

Question

Is there a simple way to hook into the standard 'Add or Remove Programs' functionality using PowerShell to uninstall an existing application? Or to check if the application is installed?

Answer 1

Here is the PowerShell script using msiexec:

echo "Getting product code"
$ProductCode = Get-WmiObject win32_product -Filter "Name='Name of my Software in Add Remove Program Window'" | Select-Object -Expand IdentifyingNumber
echo "removing Product"
# Out-Null argument is just for keeping the power shell command window waiting for msiexec command to finish else it moves to execute the next echo command
& msiexec /x $ProductCode | Out-Null
echo "uninstallation finished"

Answer 2

I will make my own little contribution. I needed to remove a list of packages from the same computer. This is the script I came up with.

$packages = @("package1", "package2", "package3")
foreach($package in $packages){
  $app = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product | Where-Object {
    $_.Name -match "$package"
  }
  $app.Uninstall()
}

I hope this proves to be useful.

Note that I owe David Stetler the credit for this script since it is based on his.

Answer 3

Use:

function remove-HSsoftware{
[cmdletbinding()]
param(
[parameter(Mandatory=$true,
ValuefromPipeline = $true,
HelpMessage="IdentifyingNumber can be retrieved with `"get-wmiobject -class win32_product`"")]
[ValidatePattern('{[a-fA-F0-9]{8}-[a-fA-F0-9]{4}-[a-fA-F0-9]{4}-[a-fA-F0-9]{4}-[a-fA-F0-9]{12}}')]
[string[]]$ids,
[parameter(Mandatory=$false,
            ValuefromPipeline=$true,
            ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true,
            HelpMessage="Computer name or IP adress to query via WMI")]
[Alias('hostname,CN,computername')]
[string[]]$computers
)
begin {}
process{
    if($computers -eq $null){
    $computers = Get-ADComputer -Filter * | Select dnshostname |%{$_.dnshostname}
    }
    foreach($computer in $computers){
        foreach($id in $ids){
            write-host "Trying to uninstall sofware with ID ", "$id", "from computer ", "$computer"
            $app = Get-WmiObject -class Win32_Product -Computername "$computer" -Filter "IdentifyingNumber = '$id'"
            $app | Remove-WmiObject

        }
    }
}
end{}}
 remove-hssoftware -ids "{8C299CF3-E529-414E-AKD8-68C23BA4CBE8}","{5A9C53A5-FF48-497D-AB86-1F6418B569B9}","{62092246-CFA2-4452-BEDB-62AC4BCE6C26}"

It's not fully tested, but it ran under PowerShell 4.

I've run the PS1 file as it is seen here. Letting it retrieve all the Systems from the AD and trying to uninstall multiple applications on all systems.

I've used the IdentifyingNumber to search for the Software cause of David Stetlers input.

Not tested:

1. Not adding ids to the call of the function in the script, instead starting the script with parameter IDs
2. Calling the script with more then 1 computer name not automatically retrieved from the function
3. Retrieving data from the pipe
4. Using IP addresses to connect to the system

What it does not:

1. It doesn't give any information if the software actually was found on any given system.
2. It does not give any information about failure or success of the deinstallation.

I wasn't able to use uninstall(). Trying that I got an error telling me that calling a method for an expression that has a value of NULL is not possible. Instead I used Remove-WmiObject, which seems to accomplish the same.

CAUTION: Without a computer name given it removes the software from ALL systems in the Active Directory.

Answer 4

Based on Jeff Hillman's answer:

Here's a function you can just add to your profile.ps1 or define in current PowerShell session:

# Uninstall a Windows program
function uninstall($programName)
{
    $app = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product -Filter ("Name = '" + $programName + "'")
    if($app -ne $null)
    {
        $app.Uninstall()
    }
    else {
        echo ("Could not find program '" + $programName + "'")
    }
}

Let's say you wanted to uninstall Notepad++. Just type this into PowerShell:

> uninstall("notepad++")

Just be aware that Get-WmiObject can take some time, so be patient!

Answer 5

To add a little to this post, I needed to be able to remove software from multiple Servers. I used Jeff's answer to lead me to this:

First I got a list of servers, I used an AD query, but you can provide the array of computer names however you want:

$computers = @("computer1", "computer2", "computer3")

Then I looped through them, adding the -computer parameter to the gwmi query:

foreach($server in $computers){
    $app = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product -computer $server | Where-Object {
        $_.IdentifyingNumber -match "5A5F312145AE-0252130-432C34-9D89-1"
    }
    $app.Uninstall()
}

I used the IdentifyingNumber property to match against instead of name, just to be sure I was uninstalling the correct application.

Answer 6

For Most of my programs the scripts in this Post did the job. But I had to face a legacy program that I couldn't remove using msiexec.exe or Win32_Product class. (from some reason I got exit 0 but the program was still there)

My solution was to use Win32_Process class:

with the help from nickdnk this command is to get the uninstall exe file path:

64bit:

[array]$unInstallPathReg= gci "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall" | foreach { gp $_.PSPath } | ? { $_ -match $programName } | select UninstallString

32bit:

 [array]$unInstallPathReg= gci "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall" | foreach { gp $_.PSPath } | ? { $_ -match $programName } | select UninstallString

you will have to clean the the result string:

$uninstallPath = $unInstallPathReg[0].UninstallString
$uninstallPath = $uninstallPath -Replace "msiexec.exe","" -Replace "/I","" -Replace "/X",""
$uninstallPath = $uninstallPath .Trim()

now when you have the relevant program uninstall exe file path you can use this command:

$uninstallResult = (Get-WMIObject -List -Verbose | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq "Win32_Process"}).InvokeMethod("Create","$unInstallPath")

$uninstallResult - will have the exit code. 0 is success

the above commands can also run remotely - I did it using invoke command but I believe that adding the argument -computername can work