How to uninstall Microsoft Silverlight

Learn how to uninstall Microsoft Silverlight from Windows command prompt using WMIC command.

The below command helps to uninstall Silverlight from any Windows box.

wmic product where caption='Microsoft Silverlight' call uninstall

This works on all Windows versions – Windows 7, Windows 10 and even pre-Win7 versions too. The command needs to be executed from elevated command prompt, as it requires admin privileges to uninstall software.

Example

Example run where I could successfully uninstall Silverlight from a Windows 7 computer.

C:\>wmic product where caption='Microsoft Silverlight' call uninstall
Executing (\\WINCMD-PC\ROOT\CIMV2:Win32_Product.IdentifyingNumber="{24AB137D-C266-A844-DB8B-0A4E1B0BE572}",Name="Microsoft Silverlight",Version="4.0.60310.0")->Uninstall()
Method execution successful.
Out Parameters:
instance of __PARAMETERS
{
        ReturnValue = 0;
};

A non-zero return value indicates unsuccessful attempt

C:\>wmic product where caption='Microsoft Silverlight' call uninstall
Executing (\\WINCMD-PC\ROOT\CIMV2:Win32_Product.IdentifyingNumber="{89F4137D-6C26-4A84-BDB8-2E5A4BB71E00}",Name="Microsoft Silverlight",Version="5.1.50905. 0")->Uninstall() Method execution successful. Out Parameters: instance of __PARAMETERS { ReturnValue = 1603; };

Here the command was run from an ordinary command prompt, not elevated admin command prompt, so it returned 1603 without uninstalling the software.

Can we uninstall Silverlight safely

Yes, we can safely remove Silverlight without having any impact on how your system/other applications work. Microsoft deprecated Silverlight way back in 2012. Silverlight was Microsoft’s version of Adobe Flash and supported video streaming and rich media. All popular browsers like Chrome, Firefox and IE have already stopped supporting Silverlight. I’m sure all popular web applications running on internet have already got off it, so there’s no use keeping Silverlight on your Windows box.