How do you remove/uninstall Add-Ins for Visual Studio if they are broken?

Question

I had EntitySpaces Add-in for Visual Studio (all versions) installed. Upon uninstalling it, when you start up any version of Visual Studio, you get the message "could not rename add-in file". How do you get rid of this or stop Visual Studio from trying to load the Add-In?

It appears this can be a common problem when applications that install Add-Ins or just Add-Ins on their own, don't uninstall properly or just plain break.

Incised

Have you tried to run devenv.exe /setup? – Clemen

@Clemen expanded answer to include a different devenv / command I tried, what does devenv.exe /setup do? – Incised

Answer 1

There are a few helpful articles which may be useful for your particular Add-In:

http://www.mztools.com/articles/2006/mz2006018.aspx

First of all I tried this (which may work for you) How to: Deactivate and Remove an Add-In. Note if you don't know the Namespace or ClassName of the addin, you can find it in the .addin file under FullClassName:

To remove an add-in from the integrated development environment (IDE)

1. Delete the .addin XML registration file for the add-in that you want to remove. The default location is ..\Users\username\ Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Addins\
2. At a Visual Studio command prompt, type devenv /resetaddin Namespace.ClassName, where Namespace is the name of your add-in project and Classname is its class name, for example, devenv /resetaddin MyAddin1.Connect

For me this, although not my exact problem, lead to my resolution, which was simply to run Visual Studio as administrator. Doing this for just one version of Visual Studio solved my problem in that the error message no longer appeared (probably because it was then able to successfully rename as per the original error message).

Incised

That is absolutely ridiculous. Why can VS automate installation of add-ins (just run a .vsix file), but removing them has to be done manuall‽ Why in the world can you not simply right-click the add in the so-called add-in “manager” and select Uninstall? Ludicrous! – Unsnarl

Also, I am trying to remove a third-party add-in, so I don’t know what the namespace/class-name even is. That MSDN article is useless. Way to go Microsoft. ಠ_ಠ – Unsnarl

Answer 2

For Visual Studio 2015 you have to:

1. Click on Tool -> Extensions and Updates.

2. Be sure that Installed option is selected in left part of the window.

3. Find your addin, select it and click on Uninstall button.

4. Restart Visual Studio.

Noddle

Pretty sure OP has already done this – Novotny

Answer 3

In Visual Studio 2019, Click on Extensions tab. Then click on Manage Extensions. In the window that opens,select Installed in the left pane. After that search for the Add-in you want to remove. In the results displayed, select the Add-in the hit UNINSTALL. Restart Visual Studio for the process to be completed. The process seems to work for any Add-in.

Terrorist

Pretty sure OP has already done this – Novotny