PowerShell script to help uninstall SQL Server 2008 R2 Evaluation Edition

May 24, 2011

If you haven’t been caught by a client (or even yourself) installing SQL 2008 R2 Evaluation Edition and then letting it expire, you might not realise the pain that this causes. To say it’s frustrating is a serious understatement.

Fellow SQL MVP and SQLBlog blogger Aaron Bertrand (@aaronbertrand) has an excellent post on the matter, which he put together back in October 2010. I had cause to use it recently, but got somewhat put off by searching through the registry.

So I put a line of PowerShell together (which I’ve split across 5 for easier reading):

If you run this, it will produce the file that Aaron recommended. You can look down it for anything you don’t want to get rid of, and maybe reorder the odd thing, and then run it. Then you should be able to install Developer Edition, and breathe much easier.

The script is quite straight forward, it just lists everything in the uninstall bit of the registry, gets the DisplayName values out, filters them, and outputs the results in a few lines for the batch file. Nothing amazingly complicated, but useful for getting through the list quickly.

(Big thanks to Aaron for working out what was required for the uninstall, and Aaron Nelson (@sqlvariant) for answering a quick question when I was putting the final touches on the script)

This Post Has 21 Comments

  1. Frank Q

    What I have to change in this script to uninstall SQL Server 2008 evaluation after I have installed SQL Server 2008 R2?

  2. Rob Farley

    Hi Frank,
    Tweak the bit that says *SQL*R2*. You could even just put * and then go through the resultant batch file to look for the things you want to keep. But maybe keep the *SQL* bit and then look for the stuff you want to get rid of.
    Rob

  3. THeo

    I created the uninstallR2.bat file using the PowerShell script provided above.
    Unfortunately the bat file does not run.
    I get a message telling me that
    "_R" is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file"
    Note the under score is actually a square symbol.
    I am wondering if the bat file name or location is my issue?
    I looked at the services running and found MsDtsServer100 running so I stopped it. Maybe there are other SqlServer services to stop?
    I also ran the bat file as administrator.
    Any assistance will be appreciated.

  4. Rob Farley

    Hi Theo – what’s in your .bat file? Does it contain any strange characters?

  5. Theo

    Hi Rob, to the eye nothing noticeable.
    As an experiment I REM all the msiexec and the error still occurs.
    I created a bat file with a couple of REM lines and it worked ok.
    The UninstallR2.bat result I got running your powershell script gave me 23 msiexec lines comparing to Aaron Bertrand’s seems excessive?

  6. Theo

    Given that I have never used Powershell scripting before I became suspicious that maybe the file did not get created with the correct properties.
    So I copied the contents into another file I created using note pad and it is now running.
    Not sure what the issue was, maybe Powershell needs configuring?

  7. Rob Farley

    (just started typing again)
    Yes – I suppose it’s possible that somewhere along the way there’s a strange character getting inserted instead of a space. I’m pleased you’ve got it working.

  8. Theo

    Thanks for your help.
    The bat file generated 23 uninstall commands, working through the registry would have been a time consuming trial and error exercise.
    I ran the bat file 3 times, on the 3rd run it didn’t find anything to uninstall.
    However, under Start-All Programs I still see some Sql Server 2008 menu options.
    I can still run the Installation Center, documentation and tutorials and Visual Studio.
    I will try to install the developer edition tonight and see if that works.

  9. Rob Farley

    You might see some SQL 2008 entries still, because you were only looking for R2 stuff. If you tweak the script a little, you can probably find the list of SQL 2008 things too.

  10. Theo

    Thanks the only item I couldn’t remove was the Sql Server 2008 R2 documentation.
    I will try to install the developer edition now and see if all goes well.

  11. Alex

    The odd characters are unicode. If you save the batch file using notepad, save as, and specify ANSI rather than Unicode, it should work fine

  12. Stef Locke

    I just used this to give my infrastructure guys an uninstall script for all my various bits of sql server lying around.  This has saved me so much time and if they say it doesn’t work, then I’ll chuck it into notepad and save as ANSI.  I’ve been looking for something like this for ages.  Great work!

  13. llyjak

    Thanks, you ‘ve saved lot of my time 🙂 Nice job !

  14. Ross Gallagher

    Hi Rob,
    I am trying to use your script to help me remove a SQL Server 2008 R2 installation but when I run it I get this message below:
    Get-ChildItem : A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name ‘System.Object[]’.
    Should I be able to just run your script exactly the way you have written it ?
    Thanks.

  15. Rob Farley

    It runs just fine on my machine as is.
    Try changing directory one level at a time into HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall to make sure you can. Then slowly add the rest of the script to see what fails.
    Could be you don’t have enough privilege? You could try making sure you have admin rights escalated in your PowerShell window (ie, Run As Administrator).

  16. Ed

    Brilliant, thanks! Service Pack 1 was not picked up by the script, and I am unable to uninstall it or a hot fix I had installed. Be sure to remove those first before uninstalling sql server.

  17. Varun

    To What THeo was facing with some strange characters. If you save the bat file in ASCII format you wont get that strange character.
    Get-ChildItem HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall |
    select @{Name=’Guid’;Expression={$_.PSChildName}}, @{Name=’Disp’;Expression={($_.GetValue("DisplayName"))}} |
    where-object {$_.Disp -ilike "*SQL*R2*"} |
    where-object {$_.Guid -like ‘{*’} |
    % {"rem " + $_.Disp; ‘msiexec /x "’ + $_.Guid + ‘"’; ”} | Out-File .\uninstallR2.bat -Encoding ascii

  18. Rockie

    Hi guy!
    You are Great! 🙂 Thank You very much for script, helped a lot.
    p.s.: I\d recomment to add "/quiet" on the end of msiexec command – it will avoid confirmations and dialogs
    Best regards,
    Gennady

  19. Rob Farley

    No worries. Glad it helped.

  20. Eric

    Hello i’ve the solution :
    you need to encode the result file (uninstallR2.bat) in UTF8 without Bom
    following a powershell code :
    $Path ="D:\DBA\uninstallR2.bat"
    $MyFile = Get-Content $Path
    $Utf8NoBomEncoding = New-Object System.Text.UTF8Encoding($False)
    [System.IO.File]::WriteAllLines($Path, $MyFile, $Utf8NoBomEncoding)
    And you can execute :
    ## Execute command file
    $Path ="D:\DBA\uninstallR2.bat"
    pushd $Path
    .\uninstallR2.bat
    popd
    Enjoy

  21. Rob Farley

    Yes, Eric. If you make a Unicode file, it won’t work. It must be ASCII / UTF8.

Leave a Reply

LobsterPot Blogs

Blog posts by Rob Farley and other LobsterPot Solutions team members.

Search