How to uninstall the "Microsoft Advertising SDK" Visual Studio extension?

One of the extensions listed in Visual Studio (2012 for me) is the "Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows 8.1". I like to uninstall extensions I don't need, but this one won't allow me. if I hover the (enabled!) button it says in a tooltip:

> This product cannot be uninstalled via extensions and updates

It looks like this:

On second inspection I see a similar (more helpful) message bottom right:

> You need to use the Programs and Features pane in the Windows Control Panel to remove this extension.

Easy enough, no? But it's not there!

Or:

In addition to the instructions on screen I also searched. The only helpful source was this MSDN page that says basically the same thing. Link is now broken.

Commenters mentioned that the extension web page (see "Reviews" and "Q AND A" tabs) has a few similar complaints. I've cross-posted this question there as well. Link is now broken, but if you search others are complaining still on the MSDN forums.

In any case: is there an easy way to uninstall this extension?

Run the following from an elevated Powershell prompt:

gwmi Win32_Product -Filter "Name LIKE 'Microsoft Advertising%'"

And it should show the culprits:

IdentifyingNumber : {6AB13C21-C3EC-46E1-8009-6FD5EBEE515B}
Name              : Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows 8.1 - ENU
Vendor            : Microsoft Corporation
Version           : 8.1.30809.0
Caption           : Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows 8.1 - ENU

IdentifyingNumber : {6AC81125-8485-463D-9352-3F35A2508C11}
Name              : Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 8.1 XAML - ENU
Vendor            : Microsoft Corporation
Version           : 8.1.40427.0
Caption           : Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 8.1 XAML - ENU

IdentifyingNumber : {5C87A4DB-31C7-465E-9356-71B485B69EC8}
Name              : Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone - ENU
Vendor            : Microsoft Corporation
Version           : 6.2.960.0
Caption           : Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone - ENU

IdentifyingNumber : {EBD9DB6D-180B-4C59-9622-B75CC4B32C94}
Name              : Microsoft Advertising Service Extension for Visual Studio
Vendor            : Microsoft Corporation
Version           : 12.0.40402.0
Caption           : Microsoft Advertising Service Extension for Visual Studio

Then to actually uninstall add | foreach { $_.Uninstall() } to the command like so:

gwmi Win32_Product -Filter "Name LIKE 'Microsoft Advertising%'" | foreach { $_.Uninstall() }

Which should display for each one:

__GENUS          : 2
__CLASS          : __PARAMETERS
__SUPERCLASS     : 
__DYNASTY        : __PARAMETERS
__RELPATH        : 
__PROPERTY_COUNT : 1
__DERIVATION     : {}
__SERVER         : 
__NAMESPACE      : 
__PATH           : 
ReturnValue      : 0
PSComputerName   : 

The important thing to look for is ReturnValue : 0 which means success. If you get ReturnValue : 1603 it likely means your Powershell prompt wasn't elevated (running as admin). (Full list of ReturnValues documented here)

Total Uninstaller is a simple UI tool for removing "Microsoft Advertising SDK" and similar sw.

The PowerShell answer given by Duncan Smith above is great. However, as an alternative, in the case of VS2013, if you have the iso image for the Visual Studio installation, if you navigate to the packages\AdsSDK10 folder, you will find two files,

MSAdvertisingServiceExtension.msi
Win8_1AdSDK.msi

If you right click on these, you can choose the uninstall option, and this will remove the pubCenter Integration and the Advertising SDK for Windows 8.1

For this, and all other bloatware that comes with VS 2012 and 2013 (and 2015 - I highly doubt that the current trend will ever revert back to the advanced customization options of 2010), simply install Revo Uninstaller (has a fully functional free trial), and enable "Show system components" in its options, and voila - simple as that.

Some integrated components may refuse to be removed - but if you are absolutely sure about it, just right click on them and select "Forced Uninstall", and that's it. The most offending ones, especially the extensions with their "Uninstall" button disabled (grayed out) in VS, are perfectly safe to remove - they even warn if something else depends on them, so no worries there either.

The uninstall is not available with the version of Advertising SDK that you are using. You have install the latest update to the Advertising SDK, after that an uninstaller will become available under Programs and Features.

Sharing my prefered method. There were a few other extensions I wanted to remove as well (The windows Phone Tools and F#)

https://stackoverflow.com/a/28050106/376487

Direct link to the uninstaller http://totaluninstaller.codeplex.com/

You can configure it to remove more or less depending on your needs.

Edit: @Max actually posted a forked version of this. This one is file based setup with a command line interface. I use it to script the cleanup as post visual studio install.

I solved this with installers downloaded from this page: https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/site/search?query=Advertising&f%5B0%5D.Value=Advertising&f%5B0%5D.Type=SearchText&ac=2

Be sure to run the msi file as administrator and choose Remove from the main interface page. I also had to point the uninstaller back to the msi file I started with before it would continue (duh).

Edit: After using these installers the Advertising Pubcenter Extension still remained installed. I tried the commandline version of TotalUninstaller and that worked fine (I had tried the UI version initially which left some stuff that the commandline version could uninstall).

I had problems with most of the approaches suggested here, possibly because of my specific setup, I am on a virtual machine on our companies network. Uninstalling through the Programs and features control panel failed with an error saying the installer msi couldn't be found. The powershell answer of Duncan Smart would run endlessly (until I stopped it after 15 minutes or so), so I'm not sure it doesn't work, but it took so long I gave up waiting for it. The Total uninstaller gave me the same error as uninstalling through the control panel. I also tracked down an installer msi file on one of our network drives, but it complained a newer version was already installed. Some googling turned up the visualstudiogallery site where I could download the installers that allowed me to uninstall.