How to really, really remove PPS Dashboard Designer

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The Microsoft Knowledge Base article 941749 explains (among other things) how to remove PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer. However, it appeared to me that the steps (“Method 1” and “Method 2”) were semi-cosmetic : We’re really not explicitly told how to remove the actual bitsfrom our machine.

Step 4 of the article holds a clue:

4.

Delete the cache files that are used by PerformancePoint Monitoring Server 2007. All related files are in the following folder:

C:\Documents and Settings\User_Name\Local Settings\Apps\2.0

 

However, I found it was bad to be too quick on the gun. I renamed a few of the folders that obviously held PPS bits and then relaunched DD from \Central in the hopes it would get re-installed.

Instead, I got a new dialog that read “Application cannot be started. Contact the application vendor”. The attached error details looked like this:

[11/27/2007 3:24:17 PM] System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException

- The directory name is invalid. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007010B)

- Source: System.Deployment

- Stack trace:

at System.Deployment.Application.NativeMethods.CorLaunchApplication(UInt32 hostType, String applicationFullName, Int32 manifestPathsCount, String[] manifestPaths, Int32 activationDataCount, String[] activationData, PROCESS_INFORMATION processInformation)

at System.Deployment.Application.ComponentStore.ActivateApplication(DefinitionAppId appId, Uri activationUri)

at System.Deployment.Application.SubscriptionStore.ActivateApplication(DefinitionAppId appId, Uri activationUri)

at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator.Activate(DefinitionAppId appId, AssemblyManifest appManifest, Uri activationUri)

at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator.PerformDeploymentActivation(Uri activationUri, Boolean isShortcut)

at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator.ActivateDeploymentWorker(Object state)

I returned to \Apps\2.0 folder to discover that the subfolders I had renamed were now completely gone. Not good! Next, I deleted the rest of the (about 19) folders which seem to be related to DD installation. I also removed the manifest files associated with each component from the \manifests folder. Still, no joy.

 

Finally I found that this registry entry held pointers to all the stuff I had just deleted:

 

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Deployment\SideBySide\2.0\Components

So I dutifully killed each of the keys which matched a folder I had previously deleted. Still no love.

 

Long story short, I had to delete everything under the \Apps\2.0 Folder. This allowed me to reinstall DD at the cost of ALSO having to reinstall a few other ClickOnce apps I had previously run on my machine.