Every program that properly installs itself according to Microsoft's guidelines makes a registry entry in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall. Usually, the key for the program will be its GUID, or else the name of the program. Within that key will be an entry called UninstallString. This contains the command to execute to uninstall the program.

If you already know ahead of time what you will be uninstalling, it should be easy enough to just put that in your batch file. It gets tricky when you try to automate that process though. You can use the reg command to get data from the registry, but it returns a lot of text around the actual value of a given key, making it hard to use. You may want to experiment with using VBscript or PowerShell, as they have better options for getting data from the registry into a variable.

STEP 1: Open command prompt and type wmic and hit Enter

STEP 2: Now type command: product get name and hit Enter. This command will populates a list of installed applications on your PC with complete name of an application.

STEP 3: Now type: product where name="" call uninstall and hit Enter (Note: Inside name " " you have to write the exact name of software you wish to uninstall from the populated list)
Example: product where name="Microsoft Office" call uninstall

STEP 4: Type Y for confirming un-installation process then press Enter to uninstall the software completely.

Hope it will help you.

I need to use a script with either CMD or Power Shell to uninstall a program from a windows machine.

To be clear , I already know how to use the “wmic” & "Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product ", what I am looking for is how to remove the programs listed under Programs & Feature in control panel but doesn’t show up when using WMIC (Product Get Name) or (Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product) commands.

I can use these script easily:

1. CMD:

wmic

product get name

product where name=“program name” call uninstall

2. Power Shell:

$app = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product | Where-Object { $_.Name -match “Software Name” } >> $app.Uninstall()

Both scripts above helped me remove specific programs only, but the list I have under control panel still have lots of other applications that I am hoping to use similar script to remove them.

Any idea / suggestion is highly appreciated ?

Hi IIIGeneralII

This problem has been solved by me, i just forgot that the support ticket is still active :b

You can uninstall the program by breaking it, simply use the following command in the recovery cmd

cd C:

Note: depending on which drive you install windows on, it might be D: or something else

cd Program Files

After that use dir to locate the avast file

If you didn’t find it use cd program files (x86) instead

Note its important to check on ehich folder did avast install on

Search on the internet and find out

After that

del avast

It will say “are you sure? (Y/N)?”

Type y and enter

Use cd avast to make sure that all files are deleted

Then use dir

If not all of them are deleted

Use del (something like avast.exe and etc) on all of the files.

Restart your PC/laptop and boot into it

For driver issues and boot looping

Check other topics on them

You can get some clues as to where an application lives, by looking at where it's uninstaller is located.

Windows stores the list of uninstaller locations in the registry. You can use Regedit to go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall.

That registry key contains a whole lot of sub-keys with GUID names (big long strings of seemingly random letters and numbers). Use Regedit's search function and set it to look for the name of your program as it appears in the "programs and features" list of installed programs. (Un-tick keys and values and just leave data ticked).

Once you find the right sub-key, you'll see a bunch of values for your program. One of them will be called "UninstallString" and may point to the executable or DLL that is used to uninstall the software (or might pass a file location as a parameter to MSIexec or RunDLL). Depending on where the application's uninstaller lives, that information might give you the clue you need to find the rest of the application.

There are other bits of information in the registry that can help you too - See more info from Microsoft at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa372105(v=vs.85).aspx

Typically programs that don't list an install location will have installed themselves in a number of places around your disk though, so it's best to use the uninstaller if you can.

When you install a program in Windows a registry key for its uninstallation is created holding several values, among them is the UninstallString value which is the command line the Add or remove programs uses when you click Remove.

The parent key is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

And these UninstallStrings usually have the following format:

MsiExec.exe /I{0826F9E4-787E-481D-83E0-BC6A57B056D5}

In order to acomplish what you are trying to do you will have to create a RegistryKey object, read the UninstallString value for the application you want to remove and run the command line.

More info here.