Questions & Answers

Executing batch file 'radAD31B.bat'...
The program "postgres" was found by "C:/develop/postgres/bin/initdb.exe" but was not the same version as initdb.

Installing PostgreSQL on Windows with the EDB installer is begging to get bald(er) faster. You can run PostgreSQL on WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) and connect to it on Windows!

Open Windows Terminal/PowerShell as administrator (right click the start-icon on Windows 11 -> Windows Terminal (administrator). Type:

wsl --install

Reboot your computer. After login Ubuntu will automatically be installing, WSL2 and Ubuntu is standard on Windows 11 (check documentation on how to select a different distro, etc.) Follow the instructions to enter your desired username and password.

Update Ubuntu:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Install PostgreSQL:

sudo apt install postgresql

Give the 'postgres' user a password:

sudo passwd postgres

Start the service and open psql shell:

sudo service postgresql start && sudo -u postgres psql

Notice that the password you created is not the DB password for postgres, so unless you create a new user you can give postgres one in the psql shell:

ALTER USER postgres PASSWORD 'mypw';

Now you can install pgAdmin or use your own program (in 'normal' Windows) to confirm that you can connect on 127.0.0.1 with port 5432 (may vary) with the user postgres and his password.

I've just struggled with this for several hours, so I'm posting this for anyone else who winds up here.

Initially, all I could find were two bug reports on the pgsql-bugs mailing list:

BUG #15856: The program "postgres" was found by "initdb" but was not the same version as initdb.

BUG #15970: Db initialization error - initdb.exe and postgres not same version

The specific symptoms are:

The program "postgres" was found by ".../initdb.exe" but was not the same version as initdb.

and although the versions match, you get this:

C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\11\bin>postgres -V
WARNING:  01000: could not determine encoding for locale
"<some encoding>.utf8": codeset is "CPutf8"

If these are your symptoms, the issue is that you have your region/language settings set to use UTF-8 (beta setting). This causes problems with lots of programs, and PostgreSQL is one of them. Disable this and re-install and you should be fine.

Just had this issue with postgres 12 my method to solve it is similar to Atif's but uses the command line:

1. Uninstall PostgreSQL

2. Delete the postgres user if it still exists :

   net user postgres /delete

3. Create the postgres user with a password you can remember:

   net user /add postgres [password]

4. Add the postgres user to the Administrators group:

   net localgroup administrators postgres /add

5. SKIP this as group no longer exists on win 10 and default users should have necessary permissions - Add the postgres user to the Power Users group

6. Run a command window as the postgres user: (opens up new command window) :

   runas /user:postgres cmd.exe

7. copy the install file to a location reachable by that user and run it e.g.:

   C:\Download\postgresql-12.4-1-windows-x64.exe

8. Remove the postgres user from the Administrators group:

   net localgroup administrators postgres /delete

That's it. Hope this is useful

Follow these steps to avoid this error

1. Uninstall PostgreSQL
2. Delete if you have postgres user
3. Right click on My Computer / This PC and click on Manage goto Local Users and Groups then Users New User enter Username as postgres and Password (whatever you want) and click on Create button.
4. Now right click on postgres user and click on properties click on Member of tab and then on Add button here click on Advanced and a new dialog box open for Groups click on Find Now and select Administrators click OK button.
5. Now open Command Prompt / cmd
6. here type runas /user:postgres cmd.exe and hit enter
7. cd path to downloaded Postgresql folder enter
8. postgresql-x.x.x-x-windows.exe enter (here x reflect release, major and minor versions).
9. Now repeat step 4 and remove group Administrators and add Power Users

Uninstallation may not remove all registry entries. You may type registry in the taskbar search and open Registry Editor.

Navigate to:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE

And remove entries pertaining to postgresql.

I have looked at the available solutions but none worked for me so I simply created a new user on my Windows 10 desktop and did the installation there and it was able to complete successfully.

Same problem. Beta UTF-8 was not selected. However this gave me the idea.

I was trying to install using different locale than the default locale of the system I am using. Tried a couple of times.

Installed successfully using the default locale.

If you ever changed the command line code encoding parameter in the registry

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\Autorun

to chcp 65001, chcp 1251 or any other, then that may be the issue.

Returning the value of the command line encoding registry value to default (empty) solved the problem in my case.

Try to change your registry value to empty:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\Autorun

Just little addition to the answer from Anton Kudryavtsev: Check that there is no Autoran parameter in registry: \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Command Processor

Its' deletion solved the error The program "postgres" was found by "C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/14/bin/initdb.exe" but was not the same version as initdb in my case (checked in Windows 10 x64 and Postgress 14.5 .exe installer)