Duplicate program listed in Programs and Features

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I have a program that is listed twice in Programs and Features.  I believe it occurred after and version upgrade.  Is there a way to identify the program version, location, or uninstall data associated with these entries?  To put it another way, how  can I identify which one is invalid?

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It’s possible that all you need is to add more columns to the default view of Control Panel’s Programs and Features.

Try this:

1. Open Programs and Features.

2. Each of its columns has a ‘header’ like Name, Publisher, etc. *Right*-click on one of the column headers and you should see a drop-down list of currently-enabled columns.

3. Click on the More option at the bottom of the drop-down list:

4. A Choose Details checklist will appear:

5. If not already selected, put a tick against the Version and Location. entries then click on the OK button to add the additional information columns to the Programs and Features view.

(Note that you can also select an entry in the list then use the Move Up button to change its location in the list order. This will have the effect of moving the column to the left in the Programs and Features view. Alternatively, you can re-order the column list by clicking on column headers and dragging them left or right.)

Hope this helps…

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TechTango, Seattle27, windbg

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Thank you.  Adding “Location” should have helped except that many of the programs have a blank location field, including the duplicates.  The “Version” field is blank for one of them but not the other.  I am comfortable enough with this program to attempt an uninstall of the older of the two, knowing that I can recover should it uninstall the program.  Sure would be nice to know for certain where this entry thinks its uninstall info is before attempting an uninstall though.

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Consider downloading, installing, and using Revo Uninstaller Free:
https://www.revouninstaller.com/revo-uninstaller-free-download/

Right click on the package you wish to uninstall to see options including the location.

Make a full image backup prior to using this software.

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windbg

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Thanks @geekdom.  I am familiar with Revo Uninstaller for attempting a more thorough uninstall than Windows might do but did not know about that location feature.  I will give it a try.

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If you want, you can try outputting program information using PowerShell ISE to see if the ‘uninstall’ string gives you more info about locations.

Try this:

1.. In the Windows Start menu, *right*-click on Windows PowerShell ISE and choose Run as administrator:

2. When the Windows PowerShell ISE window opens, select File > New. This will change the window to a split-pane view.

3. I’ve attached a software.txt file. Download it, open it in Notepad and use CTRL+A to ‘select all’ then CTRL+C to ‘copy’ the contents to the Windows clipboard.

4. In the PowerShell ISE, select the top pane then use CTRL+V to paste the contents into it… then press the F5 key to run the script (or click on the green Run arrow icon). The results of the query will appear in the lower pane, ending in an error as the script runs out of results to process:

You can then scroll through the output to see if it shows the duplicates and their installation/uninstallation filepaths that you seek.

software

Hope this helps…

EDIT: Oops, I’ve just seen @geekdom’s post… a much easier/better method. 🙂

 

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I found that I had a version of Revo Uninstaller portable from 2019 so gave it a try.  Neither entry contained location data.  The option to look at the registry key just made things more confusing since path is the same but one points to an expected unins000.exe file but the other points to an executable in the directory of the installed program.  I am going to close this thread and turn to the program support folks for guidance.

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FWIW, I have 2 programs that show as duplicates in “Programs and Features” with no location information.

Each duplicate listing has a different installation date. The apps are Kindle and Windows PC Health Check. I do not view this as problematic and uninstalling and reinstalling would likely be an easy fix.

You didn’t mention the name of your program. If you are comfortable, I’d suggest giving the name of the program as others may have the same thing that shows duplicates.

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