I deleted all my .msi files from my windows 11.

Anonymous
2025-05-04T07:40:33+00:00

Hello, few months ago I deleted all .msi files from my laptop thinking that they might be only installation wizards. But now I found out that without them you cannot uninstall or even upgrade the exisiting package. I wanted to upgrade my vcredist but all of them throwed an error that previous version cannot be uninstalled and failed to locate the .msi. This issue happens with every single program that is installed on my laptop.

I used several methods, like deleting registries manually or force uninstall using commands but all of them didn't do anything.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Devices and drivers

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Francisco Montilla 31,550 Reputation points Independent Advisor
2025-05-04T08:35:42+00:00

Hi Rohit,

The quickest way to recover from missing MSI files is to let Windows remove the broken installer references for you and then rebuild each program’s installer cache with a fresh copy.

Download the official "Microsoft Program Install and Uninstall Troubleshooter" (file name MicrosoftProgram\_Install\_and\_Uninstall.meta.diagcab) from Microsoft’s support site, save it locally, double‑click it and choose "Uninstalling".

When the list of applications appears, pick the product that refuses to upgrade, let the wizard complete, then restart Windows. That process erases the corrupted Windows Installer records that are pointing to the MSI you deleted.

After the restart, run the current setup package for that same application and choose Install. Because the stale entry is gone, the new installer can lay down a clean copy of its MSI into %windir%\Installer and register properly. Repeat the sequence for every program that was affected. Once each one has been through the troubleshoot‑then‑reinstall cycle, normal uninstall and upgrade operations will work again.

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-05-05T10:32:43+00:00

    Thanks it worked

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