The installer did just fine with most components, but left behind most of the Azure SDK and authoring components. Shouldn't these be in scope?

Is this project working?

I'm not sure if this is working because I'm having problems building any projects in Visual Studio which is why I want to remove it all (I have Visual Studio 2012 - 2015 installed, all Express editions and Community) and start a fresh install of Visual Studio 2015.

My env:
Windows 10 x64 Build 14393.953
Visual Studio Enterprise 2015 with Update 3
Visual Studio Community 2017 15.0.26228.9

I installed VS 2017. And, as a optional component, I installed IncrediBuild by VS 2017 installer. Then when I tried to uninstall VS 2015 either by VSU or default uninstaller, the progress freeze at "uninstall IncrediBuild". (For VSU, it's Uninstalling: C:\ProgramData\Package Cache\... shown) But before I installed 2017, I never installed IncrediBuild. Of course, the uninstall cannot success.

Instead of uninstalling IncrediBuild by mistake or reporting an error, the uninstaller "sit around". Which I mean is that both VSU and default uninstaller response to my input correctly (Ctrl-C, Hit Cancel button and others) and background threads keep alive (Just idle with some memory allocated, 0% CPU usage and 0M/s disk operation). Seems like stepped into an infinite loop or some situation like this.

I waited for 4 hours and retried for many times, no progress has been made.

Then after I manually uninstalled IncrediBuild with VS 2017 installer. The uninstall progress of VS 2015 continued smoothly.

But at the end of this Issue, I still want to thank VSU team for your work. Thank you.

Hi, I have tried to run this project and I get an error. I try to run it, with following steps

1. Open Uninstaller.sln on Visual Studio Ultimate 2013
2. Build the solution
3. Run the project "Unistall_Wrapper" in Visual Studio
4. Execute the "Setup.ForcedUninstall.exe" file in output directory of build.

In all of my tentatives to run it i get similar error, I have attached the messege, please, could you help me if I made some mistakes or not?

I used the tool. It found the different installations that I wanted removed. It removed pretty much everything VS2013 and VS2015 related as promised, from where I had been able to find it in File Explorer, where I first checked. Then I went to Programs and Features in the control panel, to see if the program listings had been removed, hhmmm not so, as these are where the "default" uninstallers are found and usually work for other programs previously installed. However, since I hadn't been able to previously complete the uninstall from this location (several attempts had been made), I thought I would give it another try, and BADABING baby, they actually finished and success was had, it was No longer in found in the Programs and Features list. I am glad it left the 3rd party stuff alone. Some how it hosed the VS 2017RC Community edition, it was where I had last found it, but it was disabled by unknown error.

Example:

• VS140COMNTOOLS
• VS150COMNTOOLS

Subsequent installation of VS will find this variable, and won't modify it to the new path (if changed).

Please could you add a prebuilt release of this to the site. Some of us want to clean up after we have already uninstalled visula studio.

Cheers

Jim

When I run
C:\Windows\system32>Setup.ForcedUninstall.exe
the output is

'Setup.ForcedUninstall.exe' is not recognized as an internal or external command
,
operable program or batch file

I downloaded this zip as advice from Microsoft.
I followed every step as it says, that broke my pc. You should add that a a risk when using the zip file. I had to reinstall windows 10 from scratch.

sorry to inform but found it useless as it just uninstalls visual studios but not the whole that was installed by the studio: Sql server, CLR-types for sql server, 2013 redistributables so on.

After uninstalling everything and installing VS2015U3 again:

• I have this project where I am targetting .NET 4.6.1, when I open it, it says that I need to download 4.6.1, when I download it, it says it's already installed
• Another project, when I try to run in mobile emulator, it doesn't show. When I download it and run it, it says that it's already installed

format c: it is.

Sorry that I create an issue topic, but I just wanted to thank you. You helped me so much with this tool!

I have a SKU that's not currently in the DataFiles folder. The tools shows an option on creating one, but there are no instructions on how to do so.

Please instruct on how to do create custom .BIN files for other SKUs.

The following components are not removed by the uninstaller.

• Xamarin
• Android SDK
• Java SDK
• .NET Core Preview
• .NET Multi-Targeting Packs and SDKs
• SSDT Tools

It leaves behind a lot of packages that are part of Visual Studio 2015. I'm not sure if these should have been removed by this.
Perhaps you should add a note here on what we should expect to be removed.

Open command prompt as administrator, run the Setup.ForcedUninstall.exe, it lists bundles that it detects including Visual Studio 2015, it gives the warning and asks if I wish to continue, I click Y and it runs vs\professional.exe.

It just sits there at the command prompt. Never says anything else, nothing ever pops up. It's like it's trying to run the vs_professional.exe, but never does or it crashes. Tried rebooting and trying again, same results. Tried leaving it overnight. Return the next day and nothing has happened.

I can't believe MS can't get VS to work. The install is messed up and I can't even uninstall it. I have work projects to complete and I can't even get started because VS is busted. I even did a clean Windows install and basically the same problem. Seriously, what is up with VS?

I think C:\ProgramData\Package Cache should also be removed because broken package cache may also cause some problem when using Visual Studio. (And I have actually encountered this problem! The broken Package Cache caused Visual Studio to crash when managing extensions,)

I am having trouble uninstalling visual studio 2013

I think I had VS 2013 then installed update 4. Then tried to install VS 2015 it didn't let me then I tried to uninstall VS 2013 it didn't let me so I tried to reinstall VS 2013 update 4. Then uninstall it. And i installed VS 2015. Though it never uninstalled 2013.

The situation at the moment is I have this weird mix of VS 2013 and VS 2015,

http://i.imgur.com/Hj9cxIJ.png

VS 2013 is there, I can open it http://i.imgur.com/oDmLFtB.png I can't remove it in add/remove programs. http://i.imgur.com/twxK2MB.png

But your forced uninstall program it seems can't see VS 2013 either, it says

"
The following bundles were detected on your system:
(Name: Visual Studio 2015 Update 2 (KB3022398), Version: 14.0.25123, BundleId: 78c1b501-a6eb-4f29-88c5-84189564827e)
(Name: Microsoft Visual Studio Enterprise 2015, Version: 14.0.23107.178, BundleId: aaff6d8c-30d0-4446-82ae-1f1650eab4b9)
WARNING: This executable is designed to cleanup/scorch all Preview/RC/RTM releases of Visual Studio 2013, Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio vNext.
It should be used as the last resort to clean up the user's system before resorting to reimaging the machine.
Would you like to continue? [Y/N]
"

TIA

Could you please post how to use this in the readme or the wiki.

I have cloned and ran but no Releases are found on my machine.

do I need to run this from a specific directory?

I don't have VS installed anymore to compile this source. The point of this utility is to remove all traces of it after a botched uninstall. Right?

Does not remove Visual Studio 15 Preview 4

Plase include a .BIN file for VS2012 Premium with Update 5

Error message: Caller: CheckInvalidPathChars Msg: Illegal characters in path.

I thought it was because the path had a dot in it but it works without the dot.

The path ... C:\Codez\z.Github\VisualStudioUninstaller\DataFiles .. worked ok without quotes. I didn't try a path with a space in it.

HI,

I have a strange issue. I have uninstalled visual studio using the uninstall exe and then removed the "microsoft visual C++ 2015 (x64) redistributable" and "microsoft visual C++ 2015 (x86) redistributable" from control panel . Next i have cleared %TEMP% and restarted my machine.

i see from the uninstall log that 2 of them have exited with 1603 error code. I have run as an administrator. Next when i install back it says "this update requires visual studio 2015 update 3to be installed"...I am not sure if i have missed anything.

uninstaller output:
Uninstalling: C:\ProgramData\Package Cache{50b32652-69d2-4b93-9316-edcd12067b8b}\vs_community.exe
Bundle: Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2015 has been uninstalled with exit code: 1603.
Uninstalling: C:\ProgramData\Package Cache{e2ccc441-0cf4-43f1-9306-c3c1c6cd4ce3}\vs_enterprise.exe
Bundle: Microsoft Visual Studio Enterprise 2015 with Updates has been uninstalled with exit code: 1603.
Uninstalling: C:\ProgramData\Package Cache{7a68448b-9cf2-4049-bd73-5875f1aa7ba2}\vsupdate_KB3022398.exe
Bundle: Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 (KB3022398) has been uninstalled with exit code: 1603.

Thanks in advance

I would like to use this but it is not shipped.

Please change from shipping to shipped.

Please forgive my chinglish, the VisualStudioUninstaller worked well on my PC to uninstall VS2015 , And I had installed VS2017 successfully. But I found that the pip of python on my PC don't work anymore. Does anybody have the same problem? How do I fix it? Please help me, thanks!

I do not have nay problems with VS 2013 community but I have problems with improper installation of VS 2015 Community. I can not install Common Tools for Visual C++ 2015 (which is per-requisite for some additional components and therefore I can not install these components). All of other components are not depended on Common Tools for Visual C++ 2015 installed properly. In addition I installed MS SQL 2014 Dev and MS SQL 2016 Dev (I know that SQL Server Management Studio 2016 required Visual Studio 2016 isolated). I can not select products to uninstall (everything or nothing) and some extensions for VS 2015 (R-language and Visual studio Tools for Office) . Thank you

if there is no vs_enterprise.exe etc. How to remove manually?

as
C:\ProgramData\Package Cache{675a5109-38d6-406c-9e75-d0e922f87a58}\vs_enterprise.exe

C:\ProgramData\Package Cache{F99F24BF-0B90-463E-9658-3FD2EFC3C992}v2.0.1459.0\packages\sptoolsDependencies\

C:\ProgramData\Package Cache{24CA683D-8174-4EBF-AD4D-3F2DD7814716}v15.0.847.30\packages\sptoolsDependencies\

C:\ProgramData\Package Cache{5D8DD6A8-C4D7-4554-93F9-F1CC28C72600}v4.1.62812.0\packages\RIA\

Hi,
its been more than 2 hours since my uninstaller window is open with no action at all. my system is not freezed. I am using windows 7, 64 bit, VS Enterprise 2015,.

how LONG should I wait? what if nothing happen at all, what I can try furture to un install VS setup.

Hello!

I've uninstalled VS 2013 Ultimate Upd 5 but the size of the folder "Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0" was about 2 GB. So I decided to use VisualStudioUninstaller . I followed by the instructions:

1. DIR to *.bin files folder
2. LOAD
3. LIST
   
4. SELECT: 10 - "Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 2013 with Update 5"
5. UNISTALL

And after the step 5 (UNISTALL) I got the message "MSI batch uninstall completed successfully" - and that's all - nothing happened (at all) - there was no uninstallation process or something.

So what I made wrong?

Thank you!
!

I'm not sure if it already works technically but I'd like to see official support for uninstalling Visual Studio 2017 RC as it somewhat destroyed my VS 2015 installation.

There is "Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2015.bin",
not sure if can use with 2015 update 1 also?

SQL Server Management Studio 16 use Visual Studio 2015 Shell, and I found that uninstaller uninstall it .

I almost went crazy with visual studio that far that I wanted to smash my computer with hammer. In 1st place I remove it and then when I wanted to install, installer acted like it's installed!!! thank you

Like the visual Studio 2015, the uninstaller leaves much to be desired. It just crashes at launch.
regardless of whether I run it with admin privs or not.

I needed to go back to VS2015 Update 1 to compile some project. But, every time I try to uninstall the program, vs_professional.exe is still left in Package Cache folder with the following command line information.

Uninstalling: C:\ProgramData\Package Cache{5a3c06b2-3f5d-4172-aafc-6ab41b004649}\vs_professional.exe
Bundle: Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2015 has been uninstalled with exit code: -2147187133.
Normal Visual Studio Uninstall completed.
Searching for stale MSIs and clean up stale MSIs.
Deleting: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\VisualStudioSecondaryInstaller
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0_Config
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0_Config
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_Config
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DevDiv\vs\Servicing\12.0
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DevDiv\vs\Servicing\14.0
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DevDiv\vs\Servicing\15.0

How can I address this problem?

I tried to install MSVC 2017 RC on a clean Win10 Home x64 (v10.0.14393). It failed because of network issues.

I uninstalled MSVC, but it left many, many subordinate pieces on my system.

I then hand deleted everything, and then deleted the C:\Program Files (x86)\MicrosoftVisualStudio folder.

When I tried to re-install MSVC 2017 RC using vs_Community.exe[1], it failed completely with a JSON deserialization error:

Unterminated string. Expected delimiter: ". Path 'packages[505].id', line 1, position 69223

Does anyone have any idea how I can clean up my inconsistent system so that Visual Studio can get through an install?

I've attached vslogs.zip as well.

[1] MD5 Sum: 8fd207f97b559c4dd34cc835b67f15cd

No to mention that the syntax is missing from the readme but executing "load" or "load config file name" (the later with or without extension) only outputs "Object reference not set to an instance of an object."

Uninstalling: C:\ProgramData\Package Cache{1ef6a030-1244-4d01-95f3-299c0e3a3362}\vs_professional.exe
Bundle: Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2015 has been uninstalled with exit code: 1603.
Normal Visual Studio Uninstall completed.
Searching for stale MSIs and clean up stale MSIs.
7 stale MSIs found. Uninstalling them.
Uninstalled MS SQL Server 2012 Native Client with exit code: 0. 6/7
Uninstalled MS SQL Server 2016 LocalDB with exit code: 0. 5/7
Uninstalled MS SQL Server 2016 Management Objects with exit code: 0. 4/7
Uninstalled MS SQL Server 2016 Management Objects (x64) with exit code: 0. 3/7
Uninstalled MS SQL Server 2016 T-SQL Language Service with exit code: 0. 2/7
Uninstalled MS SQL Server 2016 T-SQL ScriptDom with exit code: 0. 1/7
Uninstalled VS 2015 Devenv with exit code: 1603. 0/7
Deleting: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\VisualStudioSecondaryInstaller
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0_Config
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0_Config
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0_Config
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DevDiv\vs\Servicing\12.0
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DevDiv\vs\Servicing\14.0
Deleting registry: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DevDiv\vs\Servicing\15.0

First and foremost, thanks for writing this. This is somewhat cheeky but I hope you grok my intention, the instructions just need some feedback from a user with less experience in this sort of thing than the people who have commit rights to this repo.

Using Total Uninstall:

The user identifies which SKU of which release he wants to uninstall.

No girls allowed. Also, translation: Figure out which version of which Visual Studio you want to uninstall. The DataFiles folder lists the ones you should be looking for. If it's not listed then don't look for it. This will not uninstall your mother-in-law nor VS2005 from your 386 which has been corporate-firewalled from the modern world nearly as effectively has you have.

The user downloads one or more data files (from DataFiles folder) to a local folder.

If the user has somehow managed to clone this repo to a folder that is not local (well done!) then the user will need to download them by ...er, cloning this repo to a local folder. Perhaps this instruction refers to a user who has downloaded a pre-compiled build which, of of writing, does not exist.

The user executes Total Uninstaller and then dir to the directory containing the config files.

It's actually called Setup.ForcedUninstall.exe. Remember that local repo we were talking about? DIR the DataFiles folder. Don't out quotes around the path because #20

The user executes load command to the config files.

I skipped that step and it didn't seem to matter. YES, it does. do it.

The user executes list to show which SKU and release is selected and installed.

See, it didn't matter. Sh'up fool, it matters.

The user executes select to select which SKU, release, version he wants to uninstall.

Again, sorry ladies, no uninstall for you!

The user executes uninstall to perform the total uninstall.

I need to downgrade from VS2015 Update 3 to VS2015 Update 2.

I started out by using the built-in /uninstall /force flags on vs_professional.exe to uninstall VS2015.3. That succeeded, but when I ran the vs_professional.exe for VS2015 Update 2, it STILL listed "Update 3" as the top component in the custom installation area of the install wizard.

I presumed that some package was left behind on my system containing Update 3, and the VS2015.2 installer was finding this, so I downloaded the latest version of the VisualStudioUninstaller tool and ran it.

It took a while but seemed to go fine.

Unfortunately, though, when running the VS2015.2 installer, it STILL wants to install Update 3 :(
So this seems like a bug.

Expectation: VisualStudioUninstaller should remove all traces of VS2015.3 such that one can install VS2015.2 without any existing VS2015.3 packages getting found on the system and installed.
Reality: Even after running VisualStudioUninstaller, the VS2015.2 installer will still pick up the fact that VS2015.3 used to be on your system, and try to install it instead of installing VS2015.2.

I had uninstall visual studio 2012 , 2013 ,2015 , at last ,when i find in the control panel about the all software, why the components still left on my computer , what should i do to completely remove them ?
the last component left on my PC

Several months ago my VS Ultimate 2015 ultimate became borked (I think maybe something to do with ReSharper) and in the process of trying to uninstall it, I left it in a terribly broken state. Now I am trying to install VS Community 2015 and it refuses to install, claiming that the old version is still there. I have no idea what it is detecting to block the installation (definitely no executables, and I can't find any references to it in the registry) but somehow the installer thinks there is a vestige of VS Ultimate 2015 and this uninstaller tool doesn't know how to remove it.

I'd be happy to provide log files or any additional information if that would help. I'm really at my wits' end here.

Would be nice to support incomming visual studio 2017 RC and later on RTM

ForcedUninstaller should show progress reports, Visual Studio takes a long time to install, presumably the same goes for uninstalling. After running for 20+ minutes, it would be nice to know if its stuck in a while(true) {} or not.
Does not have to be deep progression, just to indicate that it is still working without having a CPU profiler running side by side.

Running it multiple times as admin, it consistently says uninstall VS 2015 SDK with exit code 1603

I can run it 10 times, every time it leaves 12 items as the output below shows.
It does that for 12 more items, all fail.

Fresh reboot, no VS running processes...
No bundle found. Uninstalling stale MSIs.
WARNING: This executable is designed to cleanup/scorch all Preview/RC/RTM releases of Visual Studio 2013, Visual Studio 20
It should be used as the last resort to clean up the user's system before resorting to reimaging the machine.
Would you like to continue? [Y/N]
y
Normal Visual Studio Uninstall completed.
Searching for stale MSIs and clean up stale MSIs.
12 stale MSIs found. Uninstalling them.
Uninstalled MS ASP.NET MVC 4 - Visual Studio 2015 - ENU with exit code: 1603. 11/12
Uninstalled MS ASP.NET Web Pages 2 - Visual Studio 2015 - ENU with exit code: 1603. 10/12
Uninstalled Test Tools for VS 2015 with exit code: 1603. 9/12
Uninstalled Visual Studio 2015 Prerequisites with exit code: 1603. 8/12
Uninstalled VS 2015 Devenv with exit code: 1603. 7/12
Uninstalled VS 2015 Performance Collection Tools with exit code: 1603. 6/12
Uninstalled VS 2015 SDK - ENU with exit code: 1603. 5/12
Uninstalled VS 2015 Shell (Minimum) with exit code: 1603. 4/12
Uninstalled VS Community 2015 with exit code: 1603. 3/12
Uninstalled VS Enterprise 2015 with exit code: 1603. 2/12
Uninstalled VS Premium 2015 with exit code: 1603. 1/12
Uninstalled VS Professional 2015 with exit code: 1603. 0/12

Sorry. Newbie here.

I have problem with VS 2015 and 2013. If I run this does it have any chance of causing any "strange behavior" in my system ? Such as deleting any necessary things (.NET or something) that I can no longer install back ?
By the way I have no chance of formatting. It is an laptop protected by guarantee.

My attempts of using this to remove VS2017 have failed, why is it not supported yet?

I had a royally screwed up Visual Studio 2015 installation, so I tried to repair... didn't work... so I tried to uninstall, and it botched it severely, made things even worse than before, and the VSIX installer is missing from my machine, so a lot of things are royally screwed and I cannot reinstall now. (errors out the ass)

I want to be able to flush all existence of VS2015 from both my disk and registry, but this isn't achieving this, because whenever I try to install again, it still complains about the missing VSix installer and all kinds of other crap.

Trying to flush then fix the latest version of VS2015 Community Edition as of this date.

I uninstalled VS2015 and used VisualStudioUninstaller to clean up, but the folder "Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0" was leaved in %ProgramFiles(x86)%\.

There are many empty nested folders here, and extensions are leaved in this place which occupied a lot of disk space. Actually they are safe to be deleted - if the user is not going to reinstall and use VS any more.

So, maybe there should be a command line option to force delete those no longer needed files?

I've been sitting on this screen for around 30 minutes.

S/W : Visual Studio 2013 with Update 2.
O/S : Windows 10