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Windows Phone 8.1 Emulators extension is pushed by default and VS2013 keeps nagging about available updates to that extension but when I attempt to update it, I get the message stating that "This computer does not support the Windows Phone emulator, which requires the 64-bit edition of Windows 8.1..."

So, they push the extension that is not compatible with the OS Visual Studio is being installed on, do not allow us to deselect it during installation, keep nagging about it needing an update and when an update is attempted tell us the extension is not compatible with the OS.

On top of all that, this extension cannot be removed from within Visual Studio or from Control Panel, how could it possibly get more lame than that!?

Anyway, how do we remove that extension and "Microsoft Advertising SDK" and all the other junk we don't need, and we don't want, from Visual Studio 2013.

Federico Navarrete
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Dean Kuga
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  • Sure, there's some ranting, but it's a legitimate question about removing unwanted Visual Studio extensions Microsoft pushes to incompatible systems and does not provide a way of removing so there is really no reason to close it... – Dean Kuga Apr 10 '15 at 17:53
  • Now that you've removed 50% of the original content (and that 50% was all ranting noise), I'll retract the down vote. *Now* it's a legitimate question. Thanks. – Ken White Apr 10 '15 at 18:24
  • I removed one paragraph but yes, I agree this was not the place for it... – Dean Kuga Apr 10 '15 at 19:04
  • Possible duplicate of [How to uninstall the "Microsoft Advertising SDK" Visual Studio extension?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24134693/how-to-uninstall-the-microsoft-advertising-sdk-visual-studio-extension) – Eris Nov 28 '16 at 22:45

4 Answers4

6

This is the best solution: Total-Uninstaller

It's an Open Source project focused on this:

Windows software uninstaller. Especially useful for speeding up Visual Studio by removing some of the bloats. Requires admin rights to run.

I was struggling a lot with this limitation and I found this software, if someone is having the same challenge, I highly recommend it.

Community
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Federico Navarrete
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4

Do one thing , WP8.1 SDK comes as a part of VS2013 Edition. Go to Control Panel ->Add/Remove Programs->Select Visual Studio -> Modify and uncheck the Windows phone SDK there

You wont have the issue then but beware that WP SDK will be uninstalled

Apoorv
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    There is no 'Windows Phone SDK' item in the list that appears after choosing Modify... The only available items are 'Blend for Visual Studio', 'LightSwitch', 'Microsoft Foundation Classes for C++', 'Microsoft Office Developer Tools', 'Microsoft SQL Server Data Tools', 'Microsoft Web Developer Tools' and 'Silverlight Development Kit' The exact same options that were available during initial setup... – Dean Kuga Apr 10 '15 at 18:07
  • check this . http://www.fluxbytes.com/software-tips/how-to-uninstall-windows-phone-sdk/ – Apoorv Apr 10 '15 at 18:25
  • That didn't work for me. It appeared to uninstall something but when I restarted VS the junk was still there... – Dean Kuga Apr 10 '15 at 19:14
  • This answer has worked for me on Enterprise Windows 8.1 w/ VS 2013 Pro Update 5. – evictednoise Mar 25 '16 at 13:28
  • This answer worked for me for Windows Phone 8.0 SDK. To uninstall 8.1 SDK, though, I had to look for it in Programs and Features and uninstall directly. – Bondt Jun 01 '16 at 13:03
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I finally got a fix for this on my machine which is running Windows 7 professional SP1 and Visual Studio 2013 with update 5.

you first need to edit the

"extension.vsixmanifest"

file located in this directory(or equivalent):

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\ProductUpdate\WPEmulator\8.1

on line 4 change the version to 8.1.0.0, so it should look like this:

<Identity Id="Microsoft.Windows.Phone.Emulator.8.1" Version="8.1.0.0" Language="en-us" Publisher="Microsoft"/>

Then run this from a command window/DOS prompt:

"\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.com" /setup

AZ Chad
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  • one more thing you may have to do (sorry I was trying a few different things at once) is 'touch' (open, change something, change it back and save) the "extensions.configurationchanged" file in this directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions – AZ Chad Aug 10 '15 at 22:09
  • I just verified this on a second machine, I did NOT have to touch the "extensions.configurationchanged" file in the above comment, I just did the 2 things outlined in my answer and it worked fine (edit the file, then run the command). – AZ Chad Aug 10 '15 at 22:45
  • After following the above instructions, I still could not uninstall from Control Panel > Programs and Features. However, I was able to then use CCleaner > Tools > (select item) > Uninstall. This ran the uninstaller (VS setup) and removed the feature. – Robert Kerr Aug 27 '15 at 17:33
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  1. Mount the Visual Studio 2013 ISO.

  2. Go to E:\packages\WindowsPhone81SDK\ (where E:\ is the drive)

  3. Right-click on WindowsPhoneSdk-Desktop.msi and select Uninstall.

To get rid of the advertising SDK, the MSI is located at E:\packages\AdsSDK10\ .

The Windows Phone SDK is now gone in the Start Menu, and in Visual Studio you can no longer start a phone project as well.

kevin
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