Uninstalling Visual Studio 2008 (All Versions)

Many months after installing Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 on a laptop, I decided I only wanted to program through Visual Studio from my a desktop. I figured uninstalling would be as simple as clicking an icon from the Remove Program feature of Windows Vista. I discovered this to be entirely untrue. When trying to uninstall the main application, I kept getting the following error dialog box stating: “A problem has been encountered while loading the setup components. Canceling setup.” The installation would then cancel (as promised by the message).

I tried many options like trying to uninstall the other Visual Studio 2008 related components and reinstalling Visual Studio 2008 to fix any potential problems, then uninstall. None of these worked!

Finally, I found a link from Microsoft’s MSDN website that contained a free downloadable executable that in one-click uninstalled Visual Studio 2008 from my desktop. It works for Visual Studio 2008 Release Candidate and official release version (English version only). A direct link to this site is at: Uninstalling Visual Studio 2008. The site also contains instructions on which extra Visual Studio 2008 related components to uninstall. Good luck!

-UPDATED- (Thanks to Carrajola)
The link is now here: http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/content/content.aspx?ContentID=7276

-UPDATED- (Thanks to John Bremer)
A new download link at http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/9/d/e9d80355-7ab4-45b8-80e8-983a48d5e1bd/msicuu2.exe

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • DotNetKicks
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Live
  • MySpace
  • Netvibes
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

48 Responses to “Uninstalling Visual Studio 2008 (All Versions)”

  1. pingru says:

    thank u , this is work !!

  2. Anonymous says:

    thx!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  3. odt says:

    Yeah, thank you very much!

  4. A very nice programm. Like it very much! thanks…

  5. Thanks I found this blog! Nice reference.

  6. joni says:

    thx a lot!!!

  7. Chris Lively says:

    Thanks! I wanted to do a clean uninstall in order to fix a number of problems produced by 3rd party libraries. This was perfect.

  8. mysteries says:

    Thanks alot this really helps!

  9. Will says:

    Thanks SOOOOOO Much – top bloke!

  10. NAt says:

    THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU I was going nuts trying to uninstall!

  11. Anton says:

    Thanks a lot mate!

  12. Anonymous says:

    i tried to do the normal uninstallation from “Add or Remove Program” wizard and everything was a mess. THANK YOU for this link.

  13. Indu says:

    Victor thanks. this post is really a big help :)

  14. Anonymous says:

    thank you wow I needed this

  15. aids says:

    Thanks so much!

  16. harsha says:

    thanks a lot!
    i m having the same problem and this works!

  17. Sidi Bou says:

    Than you.
    I have had the same problem

  18. Hugo says:

    Thanks. It was a great help :)

  19. Vishu says:

    Superb!!!! Thanks a lot

  20. luis martin says:

    thank you for finding this link. i really need to unistall this.

  21. Thanks dude, this was highly useful.

  22. myshl says:

    Thanks!!

  23. Raghuram Raichooti says:

    This is a very good tool, and its working.
    I had a problem with Visual Studios either to repa it or uninstall it and now using this i was able to remove, and install it again.

    Thanks a lot…………….!

  24. Sandra says:

    i could kiss you!

  25. John says:

    Visaul stuido 2008, update is causing the set up to fail.

    Try to remove update for visual studio 2008 by view installed updates. And then try to remove the visual studio 2008.

  26. bruzz says:

    I have been struggling with this same problem.
    Thanks a lot!
    bruzz (France)

  27. DD says:

    Thank yoy very very much! Very useful blog

  28. Arun Sivaraj says:

    Thanks a ton for your valuable info!

  29. Anonymous says:

    tq

    mario

  30. jay says:

    many thanks Victor :)

  31. WndProc says:

    Thank you and Carrajola. I saw a lot of webs talking about this tool, but was unable to find it until you guys pointed me there.

  32. emani prasad says:

    It is of real help

  33. hex says:

    Worked great, thanks for the post!

  34. Saddmell says:

    Muchas Gracias me Sirvio Bastante.!!!

  35. Barbara says:

    Try this link, it seems to be discussing that exact message
    http://www.squidoo.com/uninstallvisualstudio

  36. aymen says:

    Thank you very much !

  37. Mark Plimsoll says:

    You are a gentleman and a scholar.

  38. pankaj says:

    THANK U !!!!! ITS WONDERFUL INVENTION.I LIKE THIS.

  39. pepe says:

    the link is not found is there other link where I can get it

  40. nik says:

    the link do not work

  41. alex says:

    Thanks! It seems this is a common problem.

Leave a Reply