After installing SketchUp Pro 2022, it’s not possible to uninstall SketchUp Pro 2021.
When following the uninstall instructions, an error appears.
Uninstalling SketchUp | SketchUp Help
A later version of 'SketchUp Pro 2021' is already installed on this machine. The
setup cannot continue.
Trying to download and run the SketchUp Pro 2021 again (trying to solve this problem), gives the same error message.
Just as an aside: Unless you are very short of disk space, there is no hurry to uninstall version 2021. I have more than one older version left on my machine.
Nobody? I’d really like to be able to uninstall SketchUp 2021.
There’s no reason to have 2 versions installed, and I have limited SSD storage space.
When you originally installed 2021, and when you recently installed 2022 did you use the correct method? That being selecting the installer .exe and right clicking and choosing Run as Administrator. This is different to being signed in as an admin.
If you didn’t install this way you may be able to resolve your issues by uninstalling 2022. This may allow you to reinstall 2021 correctly and uninstall it, then Install 2022.
All done with rebooting between actions.
Don’t worry, I know the answer…
There is a defect in the 2021 installer, where instead of checking to see if a later 2021.x is installed, it mistakingly checks for anything that is later than 2021.0. So, 2022.0 is seen by the 2021 installer as being a later version of 2021, and not an entire new version.
The work around is to uninstall 2022, uninstall 2021, reinstall 2022. Your workspace and plugins will still be ok.
We’re not going to go back and release an updated 2021 installer to solve the problem, so I think the work around is the only option.
Thank you for confirming that this is a bug in the installer.
I followed your workaround to uninstall 2021.
Isn’t that the same as I suggested.
It is quite similar to your second suggestion, along with an explanation. It took another read to see that you had made two suggestions.
I didn’t need you to give me the tick, I was just curious if there was something different to what I had said.
Is this for real?
At times like these I am starting to miss 3dsmax.
Just leaving this here for people that might come across the issue as I’ve just had to solve this issue for a deployment that wanted to remove the others.
Run/Deploy the 2021 installer with the arguments -remove -silent at the end
e.g. SketchUpPro-2021-1-332-116.exe -remove -silent
You can also amend the registry editor to ask the uninstaller to run in silent
Windows key + R
Enter “Regedit”
Go to :
\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall{09480c81-5458-4d69-ab73-ee488fe8c297}
And find the “UninstallString” String , right click and choose modify it and put -silent on the end
e.g.
C:\Program Files (x86)\InstallShield Installation Information\{09480c81-5458-4d69-ab73-ee488fe8c297}\SketchUpPro-2021-1-332-116.exe" -remove -runfromtemp -silent
Uninstalling via the control panel proceed and complete without issue
I modified the registry per your instructions and still had the same result. I currently have 2023 Pro installed, and have no need/desire to keep 2021. I did successfully uninstall 2022 after the 2021 fail, and figured this would solve the problem, but it did not.
I have no confidence in uninstalling 2023, then 2021 and expecting to find all my configurations back in 2023 after re-installing (based on the previously admitted error in the 2021 installer). This includes all the extensions I have loaded and the Ruby utilities I use for extension development.
Stuck with 2021 I guess…
This is a more streamlined version of how to force uninstall it here
That worked, much appreciated 
If the SketchUp 2022 and 2023 versions are already installed on the PC before the 2021 version, it appears that installing it on the PC is not possible. Could you please provide the installation command if available?
Adam’s other post should have explained the technique he used. The worse case is that you run the 2022 and 2023 installers, to uninstall those versions, then run the 2021 installer, and finally run the 2022 and 2023 installer to reinstall those versions.
Just ran into this after installing 2024. I was apprehensive about my plugins and configurations being lost but rolled the dice and uninstalled everything anyway. It worked and everything was preserved properly, whew!
