How to really completely uninstall visual studio?
I am trying to make the computer as close as possible as if Visual Studio would have never been installed on it. I used its own installer to remove all the Installed components. Then I went to Apps and features and uninstalled visual studio from there as well.
Then I read the official documentation about Removing Visual Studio where it says that I should run installCleanup.exe -f, which I did, with the exception that on my computer I found it under:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer.98e8da4d2c7a4d1aa6e0d6e8ca2a3a02\resources\app\layout\installCleanup.exe
The above file still exists on my computer and it obviously came from the Microsoft Visual Studio Installer. It's in the name. Can I just delete it, together with the entire Microsoft Visual Studio folder? What else should I delete to really completely uninstall Visual Studio? Are there perhaps also registries left behind that should go away? Where can I find some documentation about it?
A search on my computer revealed the following folders that may or may not be there because I ever installed Visual Studio:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft Visual Studio
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\VisualStudio
C:\Users\myotheruser\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Visual Studio
C:\Users\myuser\AppData\Roaming\Visual Studio Setup
C:\Users\myuser\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio Services
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Visual Studio 2019
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Visual Studio 2019Templates
C:\Windows\System32\Tasks_Migrated\Microsoft\VisualStudio
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VSTA\AppInfoDocument\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Office.AppInfoDocument
C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Adapter.v9.0Then a bunch of others really similar to the ones above, so I would assume I can do to them the same thing.
This question is not a duplicate, as I'm not trying to fix some issue with Visual Studio by uninstalling it. My computer runs properly. I just want Visual Studio gone. No other questions specifically ask about what else can be removed after installCleanup.exe -f already run.
1 Answer
I don't know specifically about Visual Studio, but I suggest using a tool like Revo uninstaller. It lets you use the provided uninstaller and searches for files to cleanup afterwards. You'd have to have the program installed, though.
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