How to automate the uninstallation of an Office update programmatically

  • Article
  • Applies to:
    Microsoft Office

This article was written by Eric Ashton, Senior Support Escalation Engineer.

This article describes how to uninstall Office updates automatically by using a command line that resembles the following:

%windir%\System32\msiexec.exe /package {Office GUID} /uninstall {Update GUID} /QN

Determine the GUID of the installed Office version

To determine the GUID of the installed Office version, follow these steps:

  1. Locate and check the following registry key.

    For 32-bit OS

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

    For 64-bit OS

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

  2. Refer to the following articles to find the GUID in the Office version, as appropriate for your situation:

    Note

    Verify that you find the correct GUID by verifying the product in the DisplayName field of the key listed in the GUID.

Determine the GUID of the update

To determine the GUID of the update, you have to check the properties of the MSP file that is contained within the update .exe file.

First, you have to extract the MSP file from the update executable. To do this run the following command to extract the file to the c:\temp directory:

<MSP file name> /extract:c:\temp

For example, to extract content from the Office 2013 update 4462201 (mso2013-kb4462201-fullfile-x64-glb.exe), run the following command:

mso2013-kb4462201-fullfile-x64-glb.exe /extract:c:\temp

When you have the MSP from the update executable, you have to find the GUID of the update. To find the GUID, right-click the MSP file, locate Properties, and then look for the Revision number.

Sometimes there are many numbers in the Revision number section. Copy and paste the list of revision numbers into notepad, and then delete all except the first number. The first number in the list of revision numbers is the GUID.

Now, you know the GUID in the Office version and the GUID of the Office update. You can run the following command to remove the update programmatically.

%windir%\System32\msiexec.exe /package {Office GUID} /uninstall {Update GUID} /qn

Note

Use /qb for an automated uninstallation with a progress bar, or use /qn for a completely silent uninstallation.

FAQs

How can we determine whether the update is installed programmatically if we know the GUID of the update?

You can do this as soon as you convert the update GUID to the compressed GUID. Here are the steps about how to convert the uncompressed GUID to the compressed GUID.

  1. Separate the uncompressed GUID into five sections and drop the dashes. For example, an uncompressed GUID without dashes is displayed as 90110409 6000 11D3 8CFE 0150048383C9.

  2. Reverse the order of each number of the first three sections. In this example, the first three sections are displayed as 90401109 0006 3D11.

  3. In the fourth and fifth sections, you have to transpose every two characters. To do this, follow these steps:

    1. Break up the two sections to every two characters that are separated by spaces. The numbers are displayed as 8C FE 01 50 04 83 83 C9.
    2. Transpose each section. The numbers are displayed as C8 EF 10 05 40 38 38 9C.

  4. Put the numbers all together and remove the spaces. The compressed GUID will become 9040110900063D11C8EF10054038389C.

Then query the compressed GUID at the following registry location:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Patches

If the GUID exists, it means the update is installed.

Is it possible to uninstall an update that is not natively uninstallable?

Although it's neither recommended nor supported by Microsoft, you can uninstall updates that are marked as not uninstallable. Again, you have to convert the update GUID to a compressed GUID by using the previous method.

You can determine whether the update is uninstallable by using the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products\Office GUID\Patches\Compressed GUID

"Uninstallable"=dword:00000001

Note

If the update isn't uninstallable natively, it would be possible to change the Uninstallable value at this registry location to 1, and then the update would be available to uninstall.

We have an update that has multiple MSP files inside it. Is this normal? Would we have to uninstall them all?

It is common for Office updates to contain multiple MSP files. If you want to remove the update completely, you have to uninstall each MSP file.

It is also common for Office updates to apply to multiple products. Therefore, they are displayed multiple times in Uninstall or change a program. In these cases, to remove the update completely, you have to run the uninstallation command targeting the GUID for each Office product that has the update installed.