How to completely uninstall Visual Studio 2010

Question

I ve been looking to find a CLEAN solution to completely and ultimately remove Visual Studio 2010 from my computer  When you install Visual Studio  it also installs a bunch of programs  about 55  in the add remove programs panel  appwiz cpl     I ve already tried a small utility made by Microsoft but it does almost nothing    I m really looking now for a better way to uninstall any version of Microsoft Visual Studio   Because I have a lot of computers  I m often switching to a version or another or I just decide that I don t need it anymore on one computer to get back some space   Really  what s the best solution  If there isn t one  why haven t Microsoft developed one that is actually working well

User · Answer

Struggled with the same problem  Many applications  BUT make at least this part  pleasant   The trick is called Batch-Uninstall  So use one of these three programs i can recommend    Absolute Uninstaller    slim removes registry and folders  - click OK 50 times  IObit Uninstaller    also for toolbars  removes registry and folders  - ships itself with optional toolbar  dUninstaller    silent mode force  no clicking for 50 applications  it does it in the background - doesn t scan registry files    Take no 2 in imho  1 is nice but sometimes encounters some bugs  -

User · Answer

There is a solution here    Add       full  netfx   at the end of the path    This should clear almost all  You should only be left with SQL Server

User · Answer

The only real clean way to uninstall VS  Visual Studio  whatever version it is  is to completely reinstall the whole OS  If you don t  more compatibility problems might surface   Permanent solution  Starting from scratch  clean install  VS never installed on the OS   the best way to avoid all those problems is to install and run VS from a VM  virtual machine  as stated by Default in the comments above  This way  and as long as Microsoft doesn t do anything to improve its whole platform to be more user-friendly  switching from a version to another will be quick and easy and the main partition of the HDD  or SSD in my case  won t be filed with all the garbage that VS leaves behind   Of course  the disadvantage is speed  The program will be slower in pretty much every way  But honestly  who uses VS for its speed  Even on the latest enthusiast-platforms  it takes ages to install  Even if VS might start up faster on a high-end SSD  it s just slow

User · Answer

Best way I have used is to mount the VS 2010 Image or insert the Installation disc and run the uninstall option  really works well

User · Answer

Update April 2016 - for VS2013  Microsoft started to address the issue in late 2015 by releasing VisualStudioUninstaller  They abandoned the solution for a while  however work has begun again again as of April 2016  There has finally been an official release for this uninstaller in April 2016 which is described as being  quot designed to cleanup scorch all Preview RC RTM releases of Visual Studio 2013  Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio vNext quot    Original Answer - for VS2010  VS2012 Note that the following two solutions still leave traces  such as registry files  and can t really be considered a  clean  uninstall  see the final section of the answer for a completely clean solution    Solution 1 - for  VS 2010 There s an uninstaller provided by Microsoft called the Visual Studio 2010 Uninstall Utility  It comes with three options   Default  VS2010 Uninstall-RTM ENU exe  Full  VS2010 Uninstall-RTM ENU exe  full  Complete  VS2010 Uninstall-RTM ENU exe  full  netfx   The above link explains the uninstaller in greater detail - I recommend reading the comments on the article before using it as some have noted problems  and workarounds  when service packs are installed  Afterwards  use something like CCleaner to remove the leftover registry files  Here is the link to the download page of the VS2010 UU   Solution 2 - for  VS 2010  VS 2012 Microsoft provide an uninstall  force feature that removes most remnants of either VS2010 or VS2012 from your computer  MSDN  How to uninstall Visual Studio 2010 2012  From the link   Warning  Running this command may remove some packages even if they are still in use like those listed in Optional shared packages   Download the setup application you used to originally install Visual Studio 2012  If you installed from media  please insert that media  Open a command prompt  Click Run on the Start menu  Start   R   Type cmd and press OK  Enter   Type in the full path to the setup application and pass the following command line switches   uninstall  force Example  D  vs ultimate exe  uninstall  force Click the Uninstall button and follow the prompts    Afterwards  use something like CCleaner to remove the leftover registry files   A completely clean uninstall  Sadly  the only  current  way to achieve this is to follow dnLL s advice in their answer and perform a complete operating system reinstall  Then  in future  you could use Visual Studio inside a Virtual Machine instead and not have to worry about these issues again

User · Answer

the best way to uninstall VS 2010 is to use Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Uninstall Utility on this link http   archive msdn microsoft com Project Download FileDownload aspx ProjectName vs2010uninstall amp DownloadId 11182

User · Answer

This is the simplest way to remove all the packages   From an admin prompt  wmic product where  name like  microsoft visual    call uninstall  nointeractive  Repeat for SQL etc by replacing visual  in above command with sql

User · Answer

Put in your CD or mount your ISO  Run the setup program from the command prompt using the flags  uninstall  force  I actually had ran into this issue the other day and it worked wonders

User · Answer

If I may give an answer to an old thread  You can use PC Decrapifier to select programs you want to uninstall  PC Decrapifier will uninstall them one by one for you so you don t have to click them all seperately   This is very useful for removing all the  junk  - like the SQL Database tools - Visual Studio leaves behind even when uninstalled

User · Answer

Download and install IOBIT uninstaller  http   www iobit com advanceduninstaller php  find the date in which you install Visual Studio and select all programas from that date r elated to VS  Then run de batch uninstaller  It is not a fully automated solution but it is a lot quicker than going one by one int he add   remove programs in Windows  It even has a power scan to clean the registry

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