Unable to disable extensions in Visual Studio

4
votes

I am unable to disable/remove some extensions in Visual Studio 2015, including extensions like the "Multilingual App Toolkit" and "MySQL for Visual Studio" that I have installed myself. In several cases, both the Disable and Uninstall buttons are grayed out in the Extensions and Updates manager.

Visual Studio Extensions - showing greyed out disable and uninstall options

I've tried starting VS as administrator, and also launching VS in safe mode (using devenv.exe /safemode).

Why is it not possible to disable some extensions, and what is the correct way to safely disable them?

2
visual-studiovisual-studio-2015multilingual-app-toolkit

2 Answers

5
votes

You can manage extensions from Visual Studio only if they use standard .vsix installer. If they use other installer like .msi you typically use Control Panel - Programs and Features to uninstall them.

3
votes

Windows Control Panel -> Programs and Features can uninstall most of those addons.

For anything else, there is an awesome simple utility: Total-Uninstaller. It can uninstall virtually anything, including hidden stuff.

Warning: uninstalling too much can make Visual Studio crashing / unusable and can even damage Windows installation. Make sure to back up important info before proceeding.