"upgrade --all" doesn't upgrade all?

[gerhard4]

I have Firefox and two VC++ Redistributables shown by winget upgrade as upgradeable. (The Firefox versions are correct per Firefox; the others I don't know about.)

When running winget upgrade --all, the apparently correct Firefox installer gets run, and the two VC++ Redistributables get ignored. One thing that confirmed that the installer ran is that the Firefox desktop icon is back. I generally delete it after an installation.

But after running the installer, the Firefox version is still unchanged. (When I run Firefox, it confirms this: it's still 116.0.3.)

What am I missing here? This is running in an elevated cmd console:

C:\Users\ge>winget upgrade
Name                                                        Id                          Version    Available  Source
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mozilla Firefox (x86 en-US)                                 Mozilla.Firefox             116.0.3    117.0      winget
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010  x86 Redistributable - 10.0.30319 Microsoft.VCRedist.2010.x86 10.0.30319 10.0.40219 winget
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010  x64 Redistributable - 10.0.30319 Microsoft.VCRedist.2010.x64 10.0.30319 10.0.40219 winget
3 upgrades available.
2 package(s) have version numbers that cannot be determined. Use --include-unknown to see all results.
1 package(s) have pins that prevent upgrade. Use the 'winget pin' command to view and edit pins. Using the --include-pinned argument may show more results.

C:\Users\ge>winget upgrade --all
Name                                                        Id                          Version    Available  Source
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mozilla Firefox (x86 en-US)                                 Mozilla.Firefox             116.0.3    117.0      winget
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010  x86 Redistributable - 10.0.30319 Microsoft.VCRedist.2010.x86 10.0.30319 10.0.40219 winget
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010  x64 Redistributable - 10.0.30319 Microsoft.VCRedist.2010.x64 10.0.30319 10.0.40219 winget
3 upgrades available.
2 package(s) have version numbers that cannot be determined. Use --include-unknown to see all results.
1 package(s) have pins that prevent upgrade. Use the 'winget pin' command to view and edit pins. Using the --include-pinned argument may show more results.

(1/1) Found Mozilla Firefox [Mozilla.Firefox] Version 117.0
This application is licensed to you by its owner.
Microsoft is not responsible for, nor does it grant any licenses to, third-party packages.
Downloading https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/firefox/releases/117.0/win64/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%20117.0.exe
  ██████████████████████████████  55.5 MB / 55.5 MB
Successfully verified installer hash
Starting package install...
Successfully installed

8 package(s) have version numbers that cannot be determined. Use --include-unknown to see all results.

C:\Users\ge>winget upgrade
Name                                                        Id                          Version    Available  Source
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mozilla Firefox (x86 en-US)                                 Mozilla.Firefox             116.0.3    117.0      winget
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010  x86 Redistributable - 10.0.30319 Microsoft.VCRedist.2010.x86 10.0.30319 10.0.40219 winget
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010  x64 Redistributable - 10.0.30319 Microsoft.VCRedist.2010.x64 10.0.30319 10.0.40219 winget
3 upgrades available.
2 package(s) have version numbers that cannot be determined. Use --include-unknown to see all results.
1 package(s) have pins that prevent upgrade. Use the 'winget pin' command to view and edit pins. Using the --include-pinned argument may show more results.

[gerhard4]

Here is what winget knew about Firefox (after winget installed the additional version 117.0):

C:\WINDOWS\system32>winget list firefox
Name                        Id              Version Available Source
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Mozilla Firefox (x64 en-US) Mozilla.Firefox 117.0             winget
Mozilla Firefox (x86 en-US) Mozilla.Firefox 116.0.3 117.0     winget

I fixed this by uninstalling the older version. The newer version then started with a new profile, which was ok for me in this case. So this seems now ok (and I hope it will continue with future updates), but I don't understand what happened here.

However, the issue with the VC++ Redistributables is different:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>winget list vcredist.2010
Name                                                        Id                          Version    Available  Source
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010  x86 Redistributable - 10.0.30319 Microsoft.VCRedist.2010.x86 10.0.30319 10.0.40219 winget
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010  x64 Redistributable - 10.0.30319 Microsoft.VCRedist.2010.x64 10.0.30319 10.0.40219 winget

No hidden second installation.

[Trenly]

I'm not sure what would be causing this, but you may get a more specific error if you try an explicit upgrade - winget upgrade Microsoft.VCRedist.2010.x64

[gerhard4]

Thanks. I tried this and got this:

❯ winget upgrade Microsoft.VCRedist.2010.x86
A newer version was found, but the install technology is different from the current version installed. Please uninstall the package and install the newer version.

So that answers the question.

For the recommended approach (uninstall/reinstall) to work, I had to use the Settings app to uninstall the x86 version. After uninstalling it with winget, it was still listed by winget upgrade and I still couldn't upgrade or reinstall it.

[gerhard4]

And another question I have: winget upgrade shows

2 package(s) have version numbers that cannot be determined. Use --include-unknown to see all results.

whereas winget upgrade --all shows

8 package(s) have version numbers that cannot be determined. Use --include-unknown to see all results.

What causes the difference in numbers of packages here?

[Trenly]

This happens because the count is taken before correlation to available packages when using --all and after correlation to available packages when just using winget upgrade

• See --include-unknown shows a lower number of packages after running "winget upgrade --all" #2458