How can I find the product GUID of an installed MSI setup

Question

I need to find the product GUID for an installed MSI file in order to perform maintenance such as patching  uninstall  how-to uninstall  and also for auditing purposes

User · Answer

If you have too many installers to find what you are looking for easily  here is some powershell to provide a filter and narrow it down a little by display name    filter     core sdk     Get-ChildItem HKLM  SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Uninstall  Name        path    Registry       Get-ItemProperty  path     Where-Object      DisplayName -like  filter     Select-Object -Property DisplayName  PsChildName

User · Answer

For upgrade code retrieval  How can I find the Upgrade Code for an installed MSI file    Short Version The information below has grown considerably over time and may have become a little too elaborate  How to get product codes quickly   four approaches   1 - Use the Powershell  quot one-liner quot  Scroll down for screenshot and step-by-step  Disclaimer also below - minor or moderate risks depending on who you ask  Works OK for me  Any self-repair triggered by this option should generally be possible to cancel  The package integrity checks triggered does add some event log  quot noise quot  though  Note  IdentifyingNumber is the ProductCode  WMI peculiarity   get-wmiobject Win32 Product   Sort-Object -Property Name  Format-Table IdentifyingNumber  Name  LocalPackage -AutoSize  Quick start of Powershell  hold Windows key  tap R  type in  quot powershell quot  and press Enter 2 - Use VBScript  script on github com  Described below under  quot Alternative Tools quot   section 3   This option may be safer than Powershell for reasons explained in detail below  In essence it is  much  faster and not capable of triggering MSI self-repair since it does not go through WMI  it accesses the MSI COM API directly - at blistering speed   However  it is more involved than the Powershell option  several lines of code   3 - Registry Lookup Some swear by looking things up in the registry  Not my recommended approach - I like going through proper APIs  or in other words  OS function calls   There are always weird exceptions accounted for only by the internals of the API-implementation   HKLM SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Uninstall HKLM SOFTWARE WOW6432Node Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Uninstall HKCU Software Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Uninstall  4 - Original MSI File   WiX Source You can find the Product Code in the Property table of any MSI file  and any other property as well   However  the GUID could conceivably  rarely  be overridden by a transform applied at install time and hence not match the GUID the product is registered under  approach 1 and 2 above will report the real product code - that is registered with Windows - in such rare scenarios   You need a tool to view MSI files  See towards the bottom of the following answer for a list of free tools you can download  or see quick option below   How can I compare the content of two  or more  MSI files  UPDATE  For convenience and need for speed  -   download SuperOrca without delay and fuss from this direct-download hotlink - the tool is good enough to get the job done - install  open MSI and go straight to the Property table and find the ProductCode row  please always virus check a direct-download hotlink - obviously - you can use virustotal com to do so - online scan utilizing dozens of anti-virus and malware suites to scan what you upload    Orca is Microsoft s own tool  it is installed with Visual Studio and the Windows SDK  Try searching for Orca-x86 en-us msi - under Program Files  x86  and install the MSI if found   Current path  C  Program Files  x86  Windows Kits 10 bin 10 0 17763 0 x86 Change version numbers as appropriate    And below you will find the original answer which  quot organically grew quot  into a lot of detail  Maybe see  quot Uninstall MSI Packages quot  section below if this is the task you need to perform   Retrieve Product Codes  UPDATE  If you also need the upgrade code  check this answer  How can I find the Upgrade Code for an installed MSI file   retrieves associated product codes  upgrade codes  amp  product names in a table output - similar to the one below    Can t use PowerShell  See  quot Alternative Tools quot  section below  Looking to uninstall  See  quot Uninstall MSI packages quot  section below    Fire up Powershell  hold down the Windows key  tap R  release the Windows key  type in  quot powershell quot  and press OK  and run the command below to get a list of installed MSI package product codes along with the local cache package path and the product name  maximize the PowerShell window to avoid truncated names   Before running this command line  please read the disclaimer below  nothing dangerous  just some potential nuisances   Section 3 under  quot Alternative Tools quot  shows an alternative non-WMI way to get the same information using VBScript  If you are trying to uninstall a package there is a section below with some sample msiexec exe command lines  get-wmiobject Win32 Product   Format-Table IdentifyingNumber  Name  LocalPackage -AutoSize  The output should be similar to this   Note  For some strange reason the  quot ProductCode quot  is referred to as  quot IdentifyingNumber quot  in WMI  So in other words - in the picture above the IdentifyingNumber is the ProductCode  If you need to run this query remotely against lots of remote computer  see  quot Retrieve Product Codes From A Remote Computer quot  section below   DISCLAIMER  important  please read before running the command    Due to strange Microsoft design  any WMI call to Win32 Product  like the PowerShell command below  will trigger a validation of the package estate  Besides being quite slow  this can in rare cases trigger an MSI self-repair  This can be a small package or something huge - like Visual Studio  In most cases this does not happen - but there is a risk  Don t run this command right before an important meeting - it is not ever dangerous  it is read-only   but it might lead to a long repair in very rare cases  I think you can cancel the self-repair as well - unless actively prevented by the package in question  but it will restart if you call Win32 Product again and this will persist until you let the self-repair finish - sometimes it might continue even if you do let it finish  How can I determine what causes repeated Windows Installer self-repair    And just for the record  some people report their event logs filling up with MsiInstaller EventID 1035 entries  see code chief s answer  - apparently caused by WMI queries to  the Win32 Product class  personally I have never seen this   This is not directly related to the Powershell command suggested above  it is in context of general use of the WIM class Win32 Product   You can also get the output in list form  instead of table   get-wmiobject -class Win32 Product  In this case the output is similar to this    Retrieve Product Codes From A Remote Computer In theory you should just be able to specify a remote computer name as part of the command itself  Here is the same command as above set up to run on the machine  quot RemoteMachine quot   -ComputerName RemoteMachine section added   get-wmiobject Win32 Product -ComputerName RemoteMachine   Format-Table IdentifyingNumber  Name  LocalPackage -AutoSize  This might work if you are running with domain admin rights on a proper domain  In a workgroup environment  small office   home network   you probably have to add user credentials directly to the WMI calls to make it work  Additionally  remote connections in WMI are affected by  at least  the Windows Firewall  DCOM settings  and User Account Control  UAC   plus any additional non-Microsoft factors - for instance real firewalls  third party software firewalls  security software of various kinds  etc      Whether it will work or not depends on your exact setup   Setting up a Remote WMI Connection Connecting to WMI Remotely with PowerShell  UPDATE  An extensive section on remote WMI running can be found in this answer  How can I find the Upgrade Code for an installed MSI file   It appears a firewall rule and suppression of the UAC prompt via a registry tweak can make things work in a workgroup network environment  Not recommended changes security-wise  but it worked for me   Alternative Tools PowerShell requires the  NET framework to be installed  currently in version 3 5 1 it seems  October  2017   The actual PowerShell application itself can also be missing from the machine even if  NET is installed  Finally I believe PowerShell can be disabled or locked by various system policies and privileges  If this is the case  you can try a few other ways to retrieve product codes  My preferred alternative is VBScript - it is fast and flexible  but can also be locked on certain machines  and scripting is always a little more involved than using tools    Let s start with a built-in Windows WMI tool  wbemtest exe    Launch wbemtest exe  Hold down the Windows key  tap R  release the Windows key  type in  quot wbemtest exe quot  and press OK   Click connect and then OK  namespace defaults to root cimv2   and click  quot connect quot  again  Click  quot Query quot  and type in this WQL command  SQL flavor   SELECT IdentifyingNumber Name Version FROM Win32 Product and click  quot Use quot   or equivalent - the tool will be localized   Sample output screenshot  truncated   Not the nicest formatting  but you can get the data you need  IdentifyingNumber is the MSI product code     Next  you can try a custom  more full featured WMI tool such as WMIExplorer exe   This is not included in Windows  It is a very good tool  however  Recommended  Check it out at  https   github com vinaypamnani wmie2 releases Launch the tool  click Connect  double click ROOT CIMV2 From the  quot Query tab quot   type in the following query SELECT IdentifyingNumber Name Version FROM Win32 Product and press Execute  Screenshot skipped  the application requires too much screen real estate    Finally you can try a VBScript to access information via the MSI automation interface  core feature of Windows - it is unrelated to WMI     Copy the below script and paste into a   vbs file on your desktop  and try to run it by double clicking  Your desktop must be writable for you  or you can use any other writable location  This is not a great VBScript  Terseness has been preferred over error handling and completeness  but it should do the job with minimum complexity  The output file is created in the folder where you run the script from  folder must be writable   The output file is called msiinfo csv  Double click the file to open in a spreadsheet application  select comma as delimiter on import - OR - just open the file in Notepad or any text viewer  Opening in a spreadsheet will allow advanced sorting features  This script can easily be adapted to show a significant amount of further details about the MSI installation  A demonstration of this can be found here  how to find out which products are installed - newer product are already installed MSI windows     Retrieve all ProductCodes  with ProductName and ProductVersion  Set fso   CreateObject  quot Scripting FileSystemObject quot   Set output   fso CreateTextFile  quot msiinfo csv quot   True  True  Set installer   CreateObject  quot WindowsInstaller Installer quot    On Error Resume Next   we ignore all errors  For Each product In installer ProductsEx  quot  quot    quot  quot   7     productcode   product ProductCode    name   product InstallProperty  quot ProductName quot      version product InstallProperty  quot VersionString quot      output writeline  productcode  amp   quot    quot   amp  name  amp   quot    quot   amp  version  Next  output Close   I can t think of any further general purpose options to retrieve product codes at the moment  please add if you know of any  Just edit inline rather than adding too many comments please  You can certainly access this information from within your application by calling the MSI automation interface  COM based  OR the C   MSI installer functions  Win32 API   Or even use WMI queries from within your application like you do in the samples above using PowerShell  wbemtest exe or WMIExplorer exe    Uninstall MSI Packages If what you want to do is to uninstall the MSI package you found the product code for  you can do this as follows using an elevated command prompt  search for cmd exe  right click and run as admin   Option 1  Basic  interactive uninstall without logging  quick and easy   msiexec exe  x  00000000-0000-0000-0000-00000000000C   Quick Parameter Explanation   X   run uninstall sequence  00000000-0000-0000-0000-00000000000C    product code for product to uninstall  You can also enable  verbose  logging and run in silent mode if you want to  leading us to option 2  Option 2  Silent uninstall with verbose logging  better for batch files   msiexec exe  x  00000000-0000-0000-0000-00000000000C   QN  L V  quot C  My log quot  REBOOT ReallySuppress  Quick Parameter Explanation   X   run uninstall sequence  00000000-0000-0000-0000-00000000000C    product code for product to uninstall  QN   run completely silently  L V  quot C  My log quot   verbose logging at specified path REBOOT ReallySuppress   avoid unexpected  sudden reboot  There is a comprehensive reference for MSI uninstall here  various different ways to uninstall MSI packages   Uninstalling an MSI file from the command line without using msiexec  There is a plethora of different ways to uninstall  If you are writing a batch file  please have a look at section 3 in the above  linked answer for a few common and standard uninstall command line variants  And a quick link to msiexec exe  command line options   overview of the command line for msiexec exe from MSDN   And the Technet version as well   Retrieving other MSI Properties   Information  f ex Upgrade Code   UPDATE  please find a new answer on how to find the upgrade code for installed packages instead of manually looking up the code in MSI files  For installed packages this is much more reliable  If the package is not installed  you still need to look in the MSI file  or the source file used to compile the MSI  to find the upgrade code  Leaving in older section below   If you want to get the UpgradeCode or other MSI properties  you can open the cached installation MSI for the product from the location specified by  quot LocalPackage quot  in the image show above  something like  C  WINDOWS Installer 50c080ae msi - it is a hex file name  unique on each system   Then you look in the  quot Property table quot  for UpgradeCode  it is possible for the UpgradeCode to be redefined in a transform - to be sure you get the right value you need to retrieve the code programatically from the system - I will provide a script for this shortly  However  the UpgradeCode found in the cached MSI is generally correct   To open the cached MSI files  use Orca or another packaging tool  Here is a discussion of different tools  any of them will do   What installation product to use  InstallShield  WiX  Wise  Advanced Installer  etc  If you don t have such a tool installed  your fastest bet might be to try Super Orca  it is simple to use  but not extensively tested by me   UPDATE  here is a new answer with information on various free products you can use to view MSI files  How can I compare the content of two  or more  MSI files  If you have Visual Studio installed  try searching for Orca-x86 en-us msi - under Program Files  x86  - and install it  this is Microsoft s own  official MSI viewer and editor   Then find Orca in the start menu  Go time in no time  -   Technically Orca is installed as part of Windows SDK  not Visual Studio   but Windows SDK is bundled with the Visual Studio install  If you don t have Visual Studio installed  perhaps you know someone who does  Just have them search for this MSI and send you  it is a tiny half mb file  - should take them seconds  UPDATE  you need several CAB files as well as the MSI - these are found in the same folder where the MSI is found  If not  you can always download the Windows SDK  it is free  but it is big - and everything you install will slow down your PC   I am not sure which part of the SDK installs the Orca MSI  If you do  please just edit and add details here    Here is a more comprehensive article on the issue of MSI uninstall   Uninstalling an MSI file from the command line without using msiexec Here is a similar article with a few further options for retrieving MSI information using the registry or the cached msi  Find GUID From MSI File   Similar topics  for reference and easy access - I should clean this list up    How to find the UpgradeCode and ProductCode of an installed application in Windows 7 How can I find the upgrade code for an installed application in C   Wix  how to uninstall previously installed application that is installed using different installer WiX - Doing a major upgrade on a multi instance install how to find out which products are installed - newer product are already installed MSI windows  using VBScript  How to uninstall with msiexec using product id guid without  msi file present Find GUID of MSI Package

User · Answer

There is also a very helpful GUI tool called Product Browser which appears to be made by Microsoft or at least an employee of Microsoft  It can be found on Github here Product Browser I personally had a very easy time locating the GUID I needed with this

[powershell] How can I find the product GUID of an installed MSI setup?

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