Can't view or uninstall Exchange security or hotfix updates in Control Panel on Windows Server 2025

Applies To
Exchange Server SE Exchange Server 2019

Symptoms

After you install a Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 security update (SU) or hotfix update (HU), you experience issues and decide to uninstall the update. However, when you try to do this through the Control Panel by using the Add/Remove Programs feature, Windows redirects you to the Windows Server 2025 Settings menu. After the redirection, you can’t uninstall the update because the update doesn’t appear on the Settings menu.

Workaround

  • To view the Exchange updates installed, open an elevated PowerShell window, and run the following command at the command prompt:

    Get-ItemProperty "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Patch"

Note

You might receive the following error message, if there are no Exchange Server updates or additional updates installed (this is expected):

Get-ItemProperty "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Patch" Get-ItemProperty : Cannot find path

'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Patch' because it does not exist.

  • To uninstall the latest Exchange Server 2019 SU or HU on a Windows Server 2025-based server, run the following command at an elevated PowerShell window:

    Start-Process "msiexec.exe" -ArgumentList ((Get-ItemProperty "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Patch").UninstallString -replace "^msiexec\s+", "") 

Status

Microsoft is researching this behavior and will post more information in this article when the information becomes available.