How to uninstall Ruby 3.3 on Windows

Save Ruby projects, Gemfiles and any installed gems needed for later work before removing Ruby 3.3.

This guide covers Ruby 3.3.12-1 installed for the current user with winget (Inno, x64). The program folder is C:\Ruby33-x64. This test launched the Ruby 3.3 command prompt from the Start menu.

Quit ruby if it is still running

Close any terminal that still has ruby.exe. This test saw one process, the Ruby interpreter.

Remove it with its own uninstaller

This is a per-user Inno install, so uninstall does not need an administrator. The uninstaller lives in the program folder. This test used:

& "$env:SystemDrive\Ruby33-x64\unins000.exe" /SILENT

You can also uninstall Ruby 3.3.12-1-x64 from Settings, Apps, Installed apps.

Where the data is

After this uninstall C:\Ruby33-x64 was gone, and neither the user PATH nor the machine PATH still contained Ruby. The Start menu shortcut was listed and was already gone.

%ProgramData%\gemrc was still there. The file says it is RubyInstaller's machine-wide RubyGems configuration and that it must not be deleted, so another user cannot replace it on a shared PC. This copy only contained verbose: false. The uninstall left it.

Check the result

Get-ItemProperty "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\RubyInstaller-3.3-x64-mingw-ucrt_is1" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Test-Path C:\Ruby33-x64
Test-Path "${env:ProgramData}\gemrc"

• No output from that query does not prove the entry is absent when errors are suppressed. Confirm a successful query or an explicit missing-target result; a listed entry means it remains.
• False from the second means the program folder is gone.
• True from the third means that machine-wide gem configuration is still there. Leave it, as the file asks.

What Mole lists

The program folder disappeared and the Start Menu entry was already absent. %ProgramData%\gemrc remained unlisted. It is a machine-wide RubyGems configuration file whose own header says not to delete it; keep it unless you have checked every Ruby installation using it.

These defaults assume Remove data and settings with apps is off. Explicit Select all or Also remove user data can include the listed personal-data rows. Check the selection before confirming. Selected files that Mole removes go to the Recycle Bin; selected registry entries are backed up before removal. The vendor uninstaller has its own deletion behavior.

What this test covered

Recorded on 2026-10-19: Ruby 3.3, version 3.3.12-1, per-user, InnoSetup, winget package RubyInstallerTeam.Ruby.3.3. The evidence comes from an ARM64 Windows test environment and a development build of Mole. It does not certify the current downloadable package or removal of real signed-in accounts, synchronized data or production projects.

Vendor documentation. The paths and removal results above are observations from the Windows test unless explicitly attributed to the vendor.