Trying to uninstall a program with wmic and getting error 1603

Question

I'm try to create a batch file that will, among other things like installing the newest version of our software, first UNINSTALL the old version. I have used "wmic product get name" to find the actual name of the program, and then I have scripted the following code to uninstall the program:

wmic product where "name like 'Borland CaliberRM 10.1'" call uninstall /nointeractive >> C:\users\pbrandvold\Desktop\log.txt

When it's finished, I get this message:

Executing (\\PHIL-BRANDVOLD\ROOT\CIMV2:Win32_Product.IdentifyingNumber="{ED8B0A1F-8E90-478A-82B6-7C885A628257}",Name="Borland CaliberRM 10.1",Version="10.1.0.84")->Uninstall()

Method execution successful.

Out Parameters:
instance of __PARAMETERS
{
    ReturnValue = 1603;
};

I can't think of what is happening - why won't this uninstall? I've also tried using the msi, and running:

msiexec.exe /qn /x "Borland CaliberRM 10.1.msi"

Which doesn't work either.

Answer 1

I had this issue when trying to uninstall and reinstall Web Deploy using wmic via a batch file. It did not help running the batch file with elevated privileges.

The only way I could get it to run correctly was to open a Command Prompt window with elevated privileges and run the batch file through that.

The solution I ended up going with was to turn my batch file into an executable using a Bat to Exe converter. http://www.f2ko.de/en/b2e.php

Answer 2

The issue occurs due to the user's privileged of uninstalling the program. Just open the command prompt as 'Run as administrator and run your command to uninstall the program. Example: open cmd with admin: run below commands

1. wmic
2. product get name
3. product where name="YOUR_PROGRAM_NAME" call uninstall