I keep learning more and more about hidden wrinkles in WinGet. I guess that’s because I use it every day, and notice when things get hinky. Today, I noticed my pin on Adobe Acrobat got stuck like Schrodinger’s cat: it was there and not-there at the same time. Ultimately, this had me removing stubborn Acrobat pin, as normal methods couldn’t do their job. Let me explain…
What’s Involved When Removing Stubborn Acrobat Pin?
Take a look at the WinTerm screen capture that starts off this blog post. After running winget upgrade ... I got a message “1 package(s) have pins that prevent upgrade.” Flo6 has 2 pins right now and one of them has no internal version number (GNU Backgammon) so I knew the affected package must be Adobe Acrobat. You can see both packages as output to the winget pin list, in fact.
But as you can see in the next two lines, neither winget list --id... nor winget pin remove recognized Adobe.Acrobat.Reader.64-bit as a valid package name. That’s decidedly odd, because that’s the name that shows up in winget pin listoutput shown earlier.
Turns out that’s a thing. It’s a short form versus long, explicit form discrepancy.
Why the Short Form Fails
When you run winget pin remove without explicit flags, winget uses positional argument matching. It tries to match the string Adobe.Acrobat.Reader.64-bit against its installed packages database first. It does not go straight to the pin store.
If WinGet cannot find a recognized installed package entry for that string, it stops. It bails out before it ever reaches the pin database. The pin record sits untouched.
This mismatch happens for a specific reason. Adobe Acrobat was likely removed through Windows Settings or Add/Remove Programs, not through winget uninstall. Winget never got the chance to clean up its own records. So the installed-package record disappeared, but the pin record survived in winget’s separate pinning.db database file.
That gap between the two databases is the root cause of the error. The fix is to route Winget around that gap entirely.
The Fix: Explicit Flags
The solution is to be explicit with WinGet. To do that, add two flags to the command: –id and –source. Together, they change how winget searches. Use this exact command:
winget pin remove --id Adobe.Acrobat.Reader.64-bit --source winget
Here’s how this works: The --id flag forces WinGet to look up the package by its exact manifest identifier. The --source flag tells WinGet to look specifically in the winget source. Together, they bypass the installed-package correlation step and go straight to the pin store.
The output confirms it works. You see “Found Adobe Acrobat Reader (64-bit) [Adobe.Acrobat.Reader.64-bit]” followed immediately by “Pin removed successfully.” Run winget pin list one more time to confirm the pin is gone. It will be.
This is the cleanest way to use winget pin remove whenever a package no longer has a matching installed record. Keep those flags in your back pocket.
Take the Long Way Home
When winget pin remove fails with “No installed package found,” the short form is matching against the wrong database. Adding
--id and --source redirects it straight to the pin store, where it needs to go. Always uninstall packages through WinGet when you can. That keeps its databases in sync and prevents this mismatch from happening in the first place. A little discipline now saves a lot of troubleshooting later, and now you know exactly what to do when things go sideways despite your best efforts. A not unfamiliar sensation to those who, like me, run in the halls of Windows-World.
