How to remove Visual Studio 2005 (907965)



The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition

Important This article contains information about how to modify the registry. Make sure to back up the registry before you modify it. Make sure that you know how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up, restore, and modify the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows registry

SUMMARY

To remove Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, you can use one of the following methods:

  • Remove Visual Studio 2005 by using Add or Remove Programs. (This is the recommended method.)

  • Manually remove Visual Studio 2005. (This method requires that you modify the Microsoft Windows registry.)

INTRODUCTION

This step-by-step article describes two methods that you can use to remove Visual Studio 2005 from your computer. You may not always be able to completely remove Visual Studio 2005 by using Add or Remove Programs in Control Panel. This article also discusses how to manually remove Visual Studio 2005.

MORE INFORMATION

Remove Visual Studio 2005 by using Add or Remove Programs

  1. In Control Panel, click Add or Remove Programs.

    Note To manually open this Control Panel item, click Start, click Run, type appwiz.cpl in Open box, and then click OK.
  2. In the Currently installed programs list, click Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, and then click Change/Remove. Follow the on-screen instructions to remove Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.
  3. Note This step is optional. You do not have to remove this component. Additionally, this component might not have been included in the original installation of Visual Studio 2005.

    Remove Visual Studio 2005 from the Microsoft Windows Installer cache. To do this, follow these steps:
    1. Click Start, click Run, type installer in the Open box, and then click OK.
    2. On the View menu in Windows Installer, click Details.
    3. Right-click the Name column header, and then click Comments.
    4. Right-click the cached Windows Installer file that has the Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office System 2005 Runtime RTL x86 enu comment, and then click Uninstall.
    5. Follow the on-screen instructions to uninstall this package.

Manually remove Visual Studio 2005

Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.

The following method is not designed to remove everything that the installation process installs on the computer. This method is designed to remove items that have historically caused difficulty when a user tried to re-install the product.

This method requires the MSIZap.exe utility. The MSIZap.exe utility is included with the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Platform Software Development Kit (SDK). To obtain the Windows Server 2003 SP1 Platform SDK, visit the following Microsoft Web site: To manually remove Visual Studio 2005 from the computer, follow these steps:
  1. Use the MSIZap.exe utility to remove Visual Studio 2005 product keys from the registry. To do this, follow these steps:
    1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK.
    2. At the command prompt, type CD\, and then press ENTER.
    3. Locate the directory where the Windows Installer SDK has put the Msizap.exe utility.
    4. At the command prompt, type msizap TP { Product Code } , and then press ENTER.

      The product code depends on the product version that is installed. The following is the list of commands that include the correct product code for each product version:
      • Microsoft Visual Basic: msizap TP {164B10B9-B200-11D0-8C61-00A0C91E29D5}
      • Microsoft Visual C#: msizap TP {7E7D7935-B0C8-4032-80BA-2CDC9E43C3B8}
      • Microsoft Visual C++: msizap TP {AB6F4AB9-AC85-4002-9829-B6EEA55AE3A5}
      • Microsoft Visual J#: msizap TP {94160B78-D7C5-4706-8E03-9D8B3763C7DB}
      • Visual Studio Tools for Office: msizap TP {324C61EA-256E-4DFD-BF2C-6D6E5A1271A0}
      • Visual Web Developer: msizap TP {221125DC-6A40-4900-B844-591F5E1195B0}
      • Crystal Reports: msizap TP {97358C99-E52D-42C7-8B7C-B59CC4425F4B}
  2. Remove the components from Windows Component Update in Setup. To do this, follow these steps:
    1. Click Start, click Run, type installer in the Open box, and then click OK.
    2. On the View menu, click Details.
    3. Right-click the Date Modified column header, and then click Comments.
    4. In the Comments column, locate the Windows Installer file that has the following title:

      Microsoft Document Explorer 2005 - English

    5. Right-click this cached Windows Installer file, and then click Uninstall. Follow the on-screen instructions to uninstall this file.
    6. In the Comments column, locate the Windows Installer file that has the following title:

      Microsoft Device Emulator version 1.0 - ENU RTL x86 enu

    7. Right-click this cached Windows Installer file, and then click Uninstall. (The cached Windows Installer file has the .msi file name extension.) Follow the on-screen instructions to uninstall this file.
  3. Use the MSIZap.exe utility to remove all Visual Studio 2005 Windows Component Update product keys from the registry. To do this, run the following commands, including the product keys:
    • Visual Studio 2005 Professional: msizap TP {437AB8E0-FB69-4222-B280-A64F3DE22591}
    • Visual Studio 2005 Standard: msizap TP {D407F7C0-579E-4CCB-91FD-855CE5084E86}Visual Studio 2005 Express: msizap TP {577AD794-8B34-40B4-9E7A-BE4CFFE396E6}
  4. Rename or delete the Microsoft Visual Studio 8 folder and the VS7Debug folder. To do this, follow these steps:
    1. Click Start, click Run, type %programfiles% in the Open box, and then click OK.
    2. Locate and then rename or delete the Microsoft Visual Studio 8 folder.
    3. Double-click the Common Filesfolder, and then double-click the Microsoft Shared folder.
    4. Locate and then rename or delete the VS7Debug folder.
    5. Close this window.
  5. Delete the registry keys that remain. To do this, follow these steps:
    1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
    2. Delete the following registry keys:
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0
      • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0
    3. Exit Registry Editor.

REFERENCES

For more information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

312383 How to remove Visual Studio .NET Beta and Release Candidate versions

320114 How to manually remove Visual Studio .NET 2002 components

824642 How to remove Visual Studio .NET 2003


Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:5/2/2006
Keywords:kbhowto kbinfo kbtshoot KB907965 kbAudITPRO kbAudDeveloper