Visual Studio 2015 RC Community will not install, says it is already installed

Question

As the title implies, I am not able to install Visual Studio 2015 RC Community, and I keep getting the following errors. For the record, I am on Windows 8.1 Professional.

Answer 1

What helped in my case was to click the little blue 'show log' link.

In the log, there were like 360 lines, but the most important was this:

[1184:1BEC][2015-10-15T16:31:26]i102: Detected related bundle: {5c2b89b0-08cc-492f-b086-21e4d6ae7be4}, type: Upgrade, scope: PerMachine, version: 14.0.23107.10, operation: None

So I searched the registry (see @SteveFerg's answer for how best to do it) for the key 5c2b89b0-08cc-492f-b086-21e4d6ae7be4 which was stated in the log line. Then I deleted all corresponding keys (mainly in Dependent branches, but importantly in the Uninstall branch).

That solved the problem in my case without scouring the whole registry for hours for every Vistual Studio entry.

Answer 2

I had a similiar issue and found finally as cause entries under

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\DevDiv\vs\Servicing\14.0. To modify/delete this entries (or the key itself) solved (for me) the problem.

By K.Hoffmann

Answer 3

I have been experiencing a similar problem (trying to get rid of Visual Studio 2015 Ultimate CTP and install Visual Studio 2015 Professional instead). I had troubles uninstalling the CTP and the Professional edition kept complaining that the Ultimate version is already installed. Unfortunately, none of the proposed solutions worked for me (forced uninstall, TotalUninstall, MS Install and Uninstall diagcab, no DevDiv registry key...).
But I finally found a solution suitable for my case - using msiinv utility.

The msiinv tool is a tool which will list all installed msi on your OS. In that way you can check them and if you want to remove any of them, you may try the msiexec /x to remove that component.

Basically all that needed to be done is described in this blog post:

1) Extract the contents of msiinv.zip to the folder c:\msiinv on your system
2) Click on the Start menu, choose Run, type cmd and click OK
3) Type this command: c:\msiinv\msiinv.exe -p > c:\msiinv\msiinv_output.txt
Note: This command must be run from a cmd prompt or it will not create a log file as expected.

These steps will create a text file named c:\msiinv\msiinv_output.txt with a list of each product that Windows Installer thinks is installed on the system. Then you can open the text file in any text editor and search the list of products for the name of the product that setup told you to uninstall.

In the output there should be a part looking like this (changed to VS2015 Ultimate):

Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Ultimate CTP
      Product code: {EF2A2E8D-E03C-370E-810F-449BECDE2240}
      Product state: (5) Installed.
      Package code: {another GUID here}
      Version: 14.0(...)

Now we have the Windows Installer product code and we can use that to uninstall the product by running msiexec /x <product code> (make sure that you include the curly braces in this command line). If the product is actually installed on your system you will see a progress screen and uninstall will complete.

I have repeated the steps also for Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Ultimate CTP - ENU, just to be sure. The Professional edition installer then launched and finished successfully.

Answer 4

When VS 2015 community edition fails to install normally (That's without errors), the most probable reason is the presence of a virus or malware on the system. I had this issue earlier but managed to solve it by installing Symantec end point protection. After cleaning the malware and viruses, I managed to install VS 2015 Community successfully. Hope that's help.

Answer 5

OK, all else fails, then do it the hard way. First off, backup your system, just in case, make two backups. Warning: Running the Registry Editor can be a good way to blow your system out of the water if you are not careful. In addition there are many Google pages out there that outline variations for this theme. Visual Studio though seems to have its tendrils everywhere in the registry. First, the easier way:

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedt32, and then click OK.

3. under File -> export, save the registry file where Export range has All checked.

4. In Registry Editor, locate the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

5. Each key listed under Uninstall in the left pane of Registry Editor represents a program that is displayed in the Currently installed programs list of the Add or Remove Programs tool. To determine which program that each key represents, click the key, and then view the following values in the details pane on the right:

   DisplayName: The value data for the DisplayName key is the name that is listed in Add or Remove Programs.
   -and-
   UninstallString: The value data for the UninstallString key is the program that is used to uninstall the program. (You can try the uninstall string manually if you like, but it may not work since you said you have deleted everything.)

6. After you identify the registry key that represents the program that you removed but which is still displayed in the Currently installed programs list of Add or Remove Programs, right-click the key in the left pane of the Registry Editor window, and then click Delete. This assumes that it appears in Programs and Features if not, then ignore the rest of these steps.

7. Click Yes in response to the "Are you sure you want to delete this key and all of its subkeys?" message.

8. On the File menu, click Exit to quit Registry Editor. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Programs and Features.

Verify that the program whose registry key you deleted is no longer listed. Reboot and try the install again.

If it still does not work, then do it the really hard way

Go back into regedt32 and then do a find and delete all keys that have

Visual Studio 2015

or

Visual Studio 14.0

If it says Visual Studio with a revision number less than 14.0, then leave it alone. If in doubt, then leave it alone, you can always do another pass. Sometimes it can take more than one pass to find everything. It will take a while to find and delete all the associated keys, and is very tedious. Once complete, cross your fingers and reboot your system and try the install again.

These steps, from experience, have worked for me, so I am not telling you anything that I have not tried myself (the hard way).