Installation errors

Error 1605

This action is only valid for products that are currently installed.

The product code you passed does not match anything installed on this machine. Nine times out of ten the code belongs to a different version of the same program.

What it actually means

Every MSI installation is identified by a product code, a GUID that Windows uses to find it. Uninstall commands take that code, and if nothing installed matches it, Windows refuses rather than guessing. That refusal is 1605, and it is a safe failure: it did not remove the wrong thing.

How to fix it, in order

Ordered by how often each one is the answer, not by how clever it sounds.

1. 01Read the code of what is actually installed. In PowerShell: Get-Package -Name "*part of the program name*" | Select-Object Name, Version, FastPackageReference. Use that code instead of the one you had.
2. 02Remember that the product code changes with every version. A command that worked last year refers to a release that is no longer on the machine.
3. 03Check whether the program was installed per-user rather than for all users. An elevated terminal runs as a different account and will not see a per-user installation at all.
4. 04If the program is genuinely gone but still listed in Settings, the entry is an orphaned registry key rather than an installation, and removing that key is the fix.

The product code for every program we index

Common questions

What does error 1605 mean when uninstalling?

That the product code you used is not installed on that machine. Usually the installed version differs from the one the code belongs to, because the code changes with every release.

How do I find the right product code?

Use Get-Package in PowerShell rather than Get-WmiObject Win32_Product, which is slow and can trigger repairs on every installed MSI.