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I cannot uninstall VS 2013 Update 3 from "control panel"-> "view installed updates". It displays the message "Visual Studio 2013 Udpate 3 (KB2829760) has stopped working". How can I completely delete all the VS update elements ?

Sarath Subramanian
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Adrian
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    Try to run update installer with /uninstall and /force keys. – lavrik Nov 28 '14 at 11:40
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    In my experience, the only reliable way to eliminate Visual Studio is to reinstall or recover from backup whole OS. This often happens with big products from Microsoft (VS, Office, etc.). Reinstalling and set up OS will take less time than inventing removal solution. – Ivan Aksamentov - Drop Nov 28 '14 at 11:44
  • @Drop *Uninstalling* Visual Studio removes any updates installed by it, if anything uninstalling VS should be sufficient to remove all of VS' data. Saying that, a system restore might do it (I've updated my answer to reflect this). – AStopher Nov 28 '14 at 12:37
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    @cybermonkey Yes, it _should_ be sufficient but unfortunately it isn't. Most times even mature uninstallers with filesystem/registry tracking features cannot remove Visual Studio cleanly. There will be random hardly-reproducible troubles after reinstalling. I used to working either inside virtual machines, so it could be quickly rolled back, or on dedicated drives where I'm applying backups in case of troubles. It's my experience with MS products. I cannot prove if I am right or not. Let's say, I'm sharing experience ;) – Ivan Aksamentov - Drop Nov 28 '14 at 15:16

3 Answers3

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There's a few ways to do this.

From the installation media or from where its installed you can run:

vs_<enterprise/ultimate etc>.exe /uninstall /force

Alternatively you can use the Visual Studio Uninstaller provided by MS for this exact purpose. https://github.com/Microsoft/VisualStudioUninstaller

I've used the /force option when VS 2013 wouldn't uninstall from Programs and Features and just hung.

Note: Visual Studio 2013 and Visual Studio 2015 can appear to hang sometimes when you uninstall them. If using the command above my experience has been to just let them go and eventually it cleans it self up.

Ralph Willgoss
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    This worked for me after running it from an admin command line. The exe was in an unusual location for me: C:\ProgramData\Package Cache\{6dff50d0-3bc3-4a92-b724-bf6d6a99de4f} – bobasaurus Nov 28 '17 at 20:08
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Your best bet is to uninstall Visual Studio, and then reinstall it. I haven't heard of this error before, and a Google search doesn't help in this matter.

A few things you could try:

  • Repairing the disk Visual Studio is installed on (right click the disk, find and run the Scan for Errors tool.
  • Starting your computer in Safe Mode and attempting to uninstall Update 3
  • If you do not have a legal license to Visual Studio 2013, this could be Microsoft's way of saying 'bugger off'. In this case purchase a legal copy of Visual Studio 2013, or download the Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition.
  • Restore your system to the state it was in before Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 was installed.
  • Try removing all traces of Visual Studio 2013 (apart from your projects) using a tool such as CCleaner or Soft Organiser.
  • Remove/deactivate any extensions installed to Visual Studio
AStopher
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  • I tried with first option, it didn't help. Uninstall from control panel was impossible, some NullReferenceException was thrown by unistaller. I've found Soft Organizer tool, it removed the all the references to VS Udpate3 from my registry and I've hope that now it will work. – Adrian Nov 28 '14 at 13:06
  • @Adrian Fair point, I'll include that in the answer in a moment. If I were you I would perform a system restore first, as this *certainly will* remove the update (I know this works because I had to remove Update 3 last week because of a compiler issue). – AStopher Nov 28 '14 at 13:09
  • Unfortunately I don't have a restore point before installing this update. I finished with fresh installation, but my compiler, linker is still broken. When I do some changes in the code and run app, debugger can't find source code. – Adrian Nov 28 '14 at 13:24
  • @Adrian Are you ***sure*** it's the Linker? What error code do you receive? The specification for some languages changed in Visual Studio Update 3, meaning that your code could potentially be outdated and the Linker is trying to help. – AStopher Nov 28 '14 at 13:42
  • I don't receive any error code, but my debuger can't find the source code when I start debugging. It also don't recompile the project when I do some changes and begin the new session (F5). – Adrian Nov 28 '14 at 14:39
  • @Adrian That's the ***exact same issues I had*** with Update 3. Simply removing Update 3 didn't do it, I had to remove and reinstall Visual Studio. – AStopher Nov 28 '14 at 14:56
  • I removed and reinstalled Visual Studio, but this also didn't solved it. – Adrian Nov 28 '14 at 15:01
  • @Adrian There *must* be something wrong with your code. Removing and reinstalling Visual Studio also removes any updates, including Update 3. – AStopher Nov 28 '14 at 15:12
  • In my case removing all the files from C:\Users\...\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0 and unistalling some extension solved the issue. – Adrian Dec 01 '14 at 09:50
  • @Adrian It's interesting to hear that the extension persisted even when Visual Studio was uninstalled. – AStopher Dec 01 '14 at 09:51
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Here's what I did:

  1. Uninstall all packages from VS. Instead of Uninstall select Modify, uncheck all and install.
  2. Restart in safe mode. Just simple safe mode.
  3. the problem is that installer is not available in safe mode. To enable it run:
    REG ADD "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot\MinimalMSIServer" /VE /T REG_SZ /F /D "Service"
    and then
    net start msiserver
  4. run Uninstall again. Now most of VS is removed. But not all.
  5. So I had to restart once again and finish Uninstall in normal way.
Andrew
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