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We are receiving vulnerabilities reports for various versions of Visual Studios on our SQL servers.
I have read that if we had Visual Studio install 2022, there is a 'remove unsupported versions' option, but of course most of our servers don't have that version.
Visual Studio versions that are no longer supported can pose a security risk to your SQL servers. While Visual Studio 2022 does have a "remove unsupported versions" option, this is not helpful for servers that do not have that version installed. It is recommended to remove any unsupported versions of Visual Studio from your SQL servers to reduce the risk of vulnerabilities.
References:
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Hello @Griffiths, Susan,
Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.
If you mean "Remove out-of-support components" feature, then this feature is with VS Installer, not with VS. It can also be used to manage and maintain older VS 2019 or VS 2017 installations.
As it is provided in VS 2022 version 17.4(or higher version) installer, you need to update or reinstall a newer version of VS Installer. You can try to Rename the "Installer" folder in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer, download the latest VS 2022 bootstrapper from here: Downloads and run it. The latest version of VS Installer will be installed, and it will automatically detect the installed Visual Studio. After that you can click the Modify button, you should see the "Remove out-of-support components" option.
To remove vulnerabilities, you may update VS, or remove unsupported VS/components. For removing old versions(unsupported) of VS, you may use Control Panel(open Control Panel > Uninstall a program > right-click the listed old version of VS > Change/Uninstall) or VS Installer(More > Uninstall). Here’s a similar thread: Is there any universal uninstaller for Visual Studio older version for clean up? I need to remove multiple Visual Studio versions through script for you to refer to.
Sincerely,
Tianyu
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