Can not uninstall VS2013 CE

Question

I had VS2013 Community Edition installed on another hard disk. Unfortunately this hard disk died a sudden death some days ago.

Now I cannot uninstall / reinstall VS2013 Community Edition, because it always cancels the process saying that he is missing several packages.

Also the command vs_community.exe /uninstall /force fails with the same report.

Is there any way I can "manually" remove some files or registry entries so that the setup thinks there is no VS2013 installed?

Thank you very much!

Answer 1

Ok, I managed to solve the problem.

Partially followed this guide: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/248697

Used Process Monitor, launching the vs_community.exe filtering for VS, Visual Studio, 12.0, etc.

Also Total Commander, searching for files and directories containing mentioned strings and deleting them.

Additionally removed tons of Registry Entries using regedit and searching for those strings.

Hope I didn't break anything important in the process. :D

Then launching vs_community.exe /uninstall /force one last time. This time it went through without aborting.

And finally I got this much desired screen ... Phew!