How do I completely uninstall Red Gate's .NET Reflector?

Question

When I installed .NET Reflector for the first time, it was as easy as unzipping it, dragging the folder to the appropriate place on my disk, and launching it. From within the UI, I was able to configure things like Windows Explorer and Visual Studio integration. This was all very nice, and I used it extensively.

Now, I can't use any of it anymore because Red Gate has decided not just to begin charging for new versions of its software, but to lock out all existing versions. My personal feelings about that have motivated me not to upgrade to the latest version, and in fact, not to use any Red Gate software at all. Fortunately, there are lots of great free and/or open source alternatives; I'll be picking one of those.

The problem is that I can't figure out how to completely eliminate of all traces of Reflector from my PC(s). I need to be able to open up the software so that I can ask it to remove itself from Explorer and Visual Studio before I go blindly deleting the folder from my disk. But I can't do that because I'm not willing to pay for it or download a new version. Instead, I get this unhelpful and now-inaccurate message:

     

Yes, I could probably delete the executable, and then go hacking around in the Registry myself to remove the shell integration and all of the associations. But I'd prefer not to do that. The software should provide me with a way to remove it, like all other software, especially now that it's no longer free.

So what is that way? Downloading the trial version just so that I can remove it is not a reasonable option.

Merrymerryandrew

Attention close-voters: The FAQ for this site clearly specifies that questions about "software tools commonly used by programmers" are valid and on-topic here. It's difficult to imagine who else other than programmers would use a software disassembler. – Merrymerryandrew

About time to edit the tag wiki. We'll show them! – Gravettian

Are you not willing to upgrade to the trial in order to remove it? – Vella

@Richard: Not really, no. I don't have to do that for any other software on my machine. Why should I have to do it for software published by Red Gate? It seems absurd that I should have to download a trial edition of their software to uninstall the one I already have. – Merrymerryandrew

@Cody - I don't disagree with you, I was simply asking if there's any technical reason you can't upgrade to the trial to remove it. – Vella

Set your clock back in time. Red Gate are mobsters. – Decompress

You are tilting at windmills. Nobody is going to take away Reflector 6.8. It will continue to be provided free, thank goodness. – Deliberative

@Phil: I see that now, after having read Bart's answer. I don't really keep up with the news on this sort of things or read Red Gate's forums, so I had no idea that the decision had been reversed. As Bart indicates, the error message is wrong--how was I to know any different? Indeed, I agree that this is a positive development, but the choice of phrase "tilting at windmills" seemed to have a negative implication. My apologies for not knowing any better, that's why I asked the question. – Merrymerryandrew

Answer 1

To answer your main question, if you want to get rid of Reflector you can probably just delete it: the vast majority of people don't use an installer to "install" it on their machines anyway, so deletion will do the job. If you did install using the .NET Developer Bundle installer you can get rid of it in the usual way via Add/Remove Programs (WinXP) or Programs and Features (Vista, Win7, etc.).

Now, as to there being no free version of .NET Reflector...

.NET Reflector 6.8 continues to be free, and is available to all users of Reflector 4.x, 5.x, and 6.x via auto-update. It does not expire and, as of 6.8.2, does not require registration - see http://www.reflector.net/2011/06/no-need-to-register-net-reflector-6-8-any-more/.

In other words, if as an existing user you wish to continue using Reflector for free, you can.

As you're obviously already aware this wasn't our original policy, but some time ago we decided we were wrong and reversed part of our charging decision. If you're interested in the background you can find out more at http://www.reflector.net/2011/04/why-we-reversed-some-of-our-reflector-decision/.

Instructions for upgrading to .NET Reflector 6.8 from previous versions can be found here:

http://www.red-gate.com/messageboard/viewtopic.php?t=13384

Basically it boils down to just click "Yes" when you're asked if you want to download the free trial of v7, and it will download and install .NET Reflector 6.8.2, which is yours, free, forever. Just to be absolutely clear: it will not download a trial version of v7 - the message is incorrect - and there is no longer any need to register, as of 6.8.2, which was released on June 30th, 2011.

I hope that's useful but if you have any other questions I'll be happy to help.

Burbank

Hmm, that is very helpful. And yes, you're correct that I didn't use an installer, but I did configure Windows Explorer and Visual Studio integration. If I do decide to remove it (I may not, upon learning that I can continue using the previous version for free), is it going to cause any problems with either of these? My experience has been that removing the executable without first disabling Explorer/VS integration can have negative side effects, like long delays searching for the integrated executable before it finally times out. My concern was how to turn this off before deletion. – Merrymerryandrew

Sure thing. When you upgrade to 6.8 the Explorer integration is still available so, in theory, that should "just work". If it doesn't the easiest thing to do is start up Reflector, uninstall the Explorer integration, then re-install it (don't do the latter if you still want rid of Reflector obviously - you can then just delete Reflector). You should then be fine. The VS integration is more problematic but again, not too hard to deal with: just start up VS then say "Yes" when you get the add-in error and it asks if you want to remove the add-in. – Burbank

Because Reflector so often isn't installed its add-in install/uninstall story has always been quite a long way short of ideal. This is still the case with v7 however I'm anxious that we should improve it significantly because it has the potential to cause people a lot of problems when their trial expires. – Burbank

Answer 2

You can uninstall Reflector from within Visual Studio:

Tools → Extension Manager… → .NET Reflector → Uninstall → Restart VS

Tenenbaum

Yes, this would be a good way to do it now. I doubt it would have worked when I asked the question, since this method requires you to be able to open .NET Reflector. At the time I asked the question, they had locked the application and prevented it from ever being opened. It just showed that stupid message box in the question. – Merrymerryandrew

This made the extension stop showing up in the list of installed extensions, but it still keeps on stopping to decompile dll's while debugging, so not uninstalled. – Tayyebeb

This removed it for me. – Isadoraisadore

Answer 3

In VS 2012, Tool -> Extensions and Updates...-> choose .Net reflector and then disable/uninstall

Silvester

Answer 4

After updating you have to register the new version with an email.

Reflector.exe /unregister 

dosn't work too, without register, but you can use a dummy email address and use the Tool menu .

Capper

I haven't updated anything. I don't want to update anything. I want to uninstall the software, not update it. And how am I supposed to get to the "Tool" menu if I can't even open the program? – Merrymerryandrew

you are right. Very ugly style from Red Gate. I can't test now, because I have uninstalled. What about turning the clock back? – Capper

Hi user039000. Please see my comments above - this is no longer correct. We removed the registration with the 6.8.2 release as of last week. – Burbank