Using uninstallstring through PowerShell to uninstall program

Question

The issue I'm having right now is that when I go to run the code through PowerShell, it is changing the value of the uninstall string and adding the variable name before it. The result i'm hoping for is this.

MsiExec.exe /X{2C5B24AD-9F13-52A1-KA2N-8K4A41DC9L4G}

But the result I'm getting from the variable after replacing the /I with an /X and doing .Trim() is the following:

@{UninstallString=/X{2C5B24AD-9F13-52A1-KA2N-8K4A41DC9L4G}}

So I was wondering if you guys would be able to tell me from my code below where I'm going wrong.

I have to replace the /I with /X, because the uninstall string first comes back like this MsiExec.exe /I{2C5B24AD-9F13-52A1-KA2N-8K4A41DC9L4G}, and I'm trying to uninstall, not install.

if ($Uninstall_str) {
    #run uninstall here
    try {
        $Uninstall_str = $Uninstall_str -replace 'MsiExec.exe /I', '/X'
        $Uninstall_str = $Uninstall_str.Trim()
        Start-Process "msiexec.exe" -Arg "$Uninstall_str /qb" -Wait
    } catch {
        Write-Output $_.Exception.Message
        Write-Output $_.Exception.ItemName
        Write-Warning "Error unintalling."
    }
}

Ansgar Wiechers · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-10 13:28:21Z

1

You didn't expand the UninstallString value when reading it from the registry. Your code for doing that probably looks somewhat like this:

$Uninstall_str = Get-ItemProperty 'HKLM:\...\Uninstall\Something' |
                 Select-Object UninstallString

Replace that with

$Uninstall_str = Get-ItemProperty 'HKLM:\...\Uninstall\Something' |
                 Select-Object -Expand UninstallString

and the problem will disappear.

answered Jul 10, 2019 at 13:28

Ansgar Wiechers

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Melon Man · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-10 13:40:02Z

0

To get rid of the @{uninstallstring all I needed to do was specify what I was trimming on this line

$Uninstall_str = $Uninstall_str.Trim()

So that line changed to the following to receive the results I was looking for.

$Uninstall_str = $Uninstall_str.Trim("@{UninstallString=")

answered Jul 10, 2019 at 13:40

Melon Man

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1 Comment

Ansgar Wiechers Over a year ago

That would only remove @{UninstallString= from the beginning of the string, but leave a spurious trailing } at the end. Don't do that. Fix the root cause of the issue instead, as outlined in my answer.

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