Folders appear on desktop screen after installing Visual Studio Community 2022, even after none of the selected installation locations in setup were the desktop screen. How can I prevent this when I re-install?

Question

These are the folders that appear after installing. I have had VS 2022 before and I'm lost as to what settings I can change to stop the folders being located here when I reinstall again.

Answer 1

Hi @Les, 

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A! 

It seems that these folders are from different locations. Have you changed your registry key before?

You can restart your pc, right-click on desktop and click “Refresh” to check it again.   Please open your registry editor and navigate to the following registry key:

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders 

Please check if there is a problem with these locations, especially Desktop. 

I suggest you do a clean uninstallation using the following steps:

1. Manually delete any leftover install and cache folder you previously installed to:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio

%programdata%\Microsoft\visualstudio\packages

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio

C:\Users<UserName>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio 

2. Delete the setup registry key, which was set when you first installed (Maybe there is only one key, please check one by one.):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Setup

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Setup

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Setup 

Then, reinstall VS and check that these folders display properly. 

Sincerely,

Anna

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