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I have a faulty installation of SQL Server and want to remove it completely. The problem is there are too many entries in Apps & features in control panel (Uninstall programs).

I followed this Microsoft documentation to uninstall and the key really is to selected the right item Microsoft SQL Server (version) (Bit) and that brings up the right uninstall dialog to uninstall it. But it still leaves several items that has SQL Server in the name. My question is, should I individually remove them as well for full removal? This includes Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio too.

By the way, I had to stop SQL Server (MSSQLServer) service before uninstall otherwise it will fail at a couple of components. If that happens, you just stop the service and re-run the uninstaller again to remove the remaining items.

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I want to clean the system completely and delete the folder C:\Program Files \Microsoft SQL Server in part because this folder a whopping 345 GB with ton of .dmp file as you can see the last two folders seems to be some kind of duplicate.

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So is good to uninstall all these entries with SQL Server in it? Or can I just delete 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server` for this time to clean up?

I have Visual Studio 2019 on my system and I want a properly installed SQL Server with it, which is what I would be installing again after full clean.

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    None of those programs you listed is actually Microsoft SQL Server. The process of uninstalling SQL Server doesn’t delete dmp files as they were not installed by the installation process
    – Ramhound
    Commented Nov 30, 2020 at 22:21
  • @Ramhound Hmm..all these components did come back when I installed SQL server fresh.
    – zar
    Commented Dec 1, 2020 at 2:26
  • They are also installed by Visual Studio
    – Ramhound
    Commented Dec 1, 2020 at 2:38

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Well I went ahead and uninstalled all these SQL Server entries listed in Apps & Features, rebooted PC and the deleted the C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server folder which freed up 350 GB of disk space. Rebooted again and nothing seems to be broken and Visual Studio 2019 runs fine so I guess that's a full removal.

Also, when I uninstalled all those SQL Server components, there were still a lot of SQL Server services running and I was not sure if they will go away but after reboot, they all are gone so that's good. Not just disabled, they don't exist anymore so that's good.

And again to emphasize, I had to stop the main SQL Service (not others) in order to completely uninstall it, namely the following components remained when I hadn't stopped the service.

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