Helper for uninstalling apps / covers apps not listed in Win32_Process. Ironically created for WinRAR, but doesn't work with WinRAR, since that has its own uninstall.exe :/

Uninstall-Application.ps1

#based on code from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/113542/how-can-i-uninstall-an-application-using-powershell

function Uninstall-Application {

    [CmdletBinding(SupportsShouldProcess = $true)]

    Param (

        [Parameter(Mandatory = $true)]

        [string]$AppDisplayNameFilter

    )

    Begin {

        #assume we're running on an x64 machine, since we're in 2019

        $x32Path = 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall'

        $x64Path = 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall'

    }

    Process {

        [psobject[]]$foundApps = @($x32Path, $x64Path) | Join-Path -ChildPath '*' | Get-Item | Select-Object -ExpandProperty PSPath | Get-ItemProperty | Where-Object {$_.DisplayName -like $AppDisplayNameFilter}

        Write-Verbose ('Found {0} apps matching Application DisplayName Filter: "{1}"' -f $foundApps.Count, $AppDisplayNameFilter)

        $foundApps | ForEach-Object {

            Write-Verbose ('Processing App {0}: ({1})' -f $_.DisplayName, $_.PSChildName)

            [string]$uninstallCommand = $_.UninstallString

            $uninstallCommand = $uninstallCommand.Trim()

            $uninstallCommand = ((($uninstallCommand.Trim() -replace '^msiexec(?:\.exe)? ', '') -replace '\/I', '') -replace '\/X', '').Trim()

            if ([string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($_.UninstallString)) {

                Write-Warning ('Could not uninstall app {0}: ({1}); it has no uninstall string.' -f $_.DisplayName, $_.PSChildName)

            } else {

                $uninstallCommand = "/X $uninstallCommand /qb"

                #Note: Until the latest version of PS WhatIf was not supported on Start-Process: https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/pull/4735

                if ($PSCmdlet.ShouldProcess("-FilePath 'msiexec.exe' -ArgumentList $uninstallCommand -Wait",'start-process')) {

                    Start-Process -FilePath 'msiexec.exe' -ArgumentList $uninstallCommand -Wait

                }

            }

        }

    }

}

 

Uninstall-Application -AppDisplayNameFilter 'WinRAR *' -Verbose -Confirm