How to: Deactivate and Remove an Add-In
Note
In Visual Studio 2013, add-ins are deprecated. We recommend that you upgrade your add-ins to VSPackage extensions. For more information, see FAQ: Converting Add-ins to VSPackage Extensions.
You can deactivate an add-in by clearing the box next to its name in Add-in Manager. You can also remove the add-in permanently so that it no longer is displayed in Add-in Manager and its command is no longer displayed on the Tools menu or the Visual Studio toolbar. The following steps show how to do this.
Note
Your computer might show different names or locations for some of the Visual Studio user interface elements in the following instructions. The Visual Studio edition that you have and the settings that you use determine these elements. For more information, see Customizing Development Settings in Visual Studio.
To remove an add-in from the integrated development environment (IDE)
Delete the .addin XML registration file for the add-in that you want to remove. By default, the file is located in ..\Users\username\My Documents\Visual Studio 2013\Addins\.
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.
At this point, the add-in no longer appears in the IDE. However, to completely remove it from the computer, you must manually delete the associated project files—for example, its solution and DLL files. By default, project files are located in ..\Users\username\My Documents\Visual Studio 2013\Projects\.