A few months ago, I mistakenly deleted all the .msi files from my Windows 11 laptop, thinking they were just installation wizards. Now, I've realized that without them, I can't uninstall or upgrade any existing programs. For example, I've been trying to upgrade my Visual C++ Redistributable (vcredist), but I'm getting errors saying that the previous version can't be uninstalled because it can't find the .msi files. This issue seems to occur with every application on my laptop. I've tried several methods, like manually editing the registry and using command line tools for force uninstalls, but nothing has worked so far. What can I do to fix this?
4 Answers
Have you tried using Hibit Uninstaller? It scans your PC for remnants of the apps and does a decent job of cleaning up. Just keep in mind that this will mainly help with third-party applications; for system apps, a reinstall of Windows might be your only option.
It’s tough since restoring those .msi files might be tricky. You may want to look into third-party uninstaller tools like Revo Uninstaller or Geeks Uninstaller if Hibit doesn’t work for you. Just a heads up, sometimes they don’t handle all programs properly if the .msi files are gone.
You could try downloading the latest versions of the programs you need and performing a fresh install. Just be cautious; upgrading directly through the settings might not do the trick, especially if the uninstaller .msi file is missing.
It sounds like a frustrating situation! Unfortunately, even the System File Checker (sfc) and DISM commands typically won’t help if you’ve deleted those .msi files. My advice would be to back up your important data and consider doing a reset or fresh install of Windows to resolve this issue effectively.
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