---
title: "Before testing an addin - Reset Visual Studio’s previous addin knowledge"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2008/8/3/before-testing-an-addin-reset-visual-studios-previous-addin.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2008/8/3/before-testing-an-addin-reset-visual-studios-previous-addin.html"
published: "2008-08-03T12:34:31"
updated: "2008-08-03T12:34:31"
tags: [".NET", "Extensibility", "Tips & Tricks", "Visual Studio"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "note to self: if you are testing an installation of an addin on a “dirty” machine where this addin has already been removed and installed many times, be sure to clean visual studio from the previous addin with this…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Before testing an addin - Reset Visual Studio’s previous addin knowledge

By Roy Osherove August 3, 2008 In [.NET](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net), [Extensibility](https://osherove.com/blog/category/extensibility), [Tips & Tricks](https://osherove.com/blog/category/tips-tricks), [Visual Studio](https://osherove.com/blog/category/visual-studio)

**Historical article** · Originally published August 3, 2008; technical details may be outdated.

note to self: if you are testing an installation of an addin on a “dirty” machine where this addin has already been removed and installed many times, be sure to clean visual studio from the previous addin with this command line:

devenv.exe /ResetAddin MyAddinNamespace.Connect

## More in .NET

[All posts in .NET](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net)

- Aug 12, 2008

    ### [ALT.NET Israel Wrap up](https://osherove.com/blog/2008/8/12/altnet-israel-wrap-up.html)

- Aug 3, 2008

    ### [VS Addins Revisited: Declarative button order and location with a DSL](https://osherove.com/blog/2008/8/3/vs-addins-revisited-declarative-button-order-and-location-wi.html)

- Aug 2, 2008

    ### [Declarative Visual Studio addin buttons with icons](https://osherove.com/blog/2008/8/2/declarative-visual-studio-addin-buttons-with-icons.html)

- Aug 2, 2008

    ### [Deadlock detectors](https://osherove.com/blog/2008/8/2/deadlock-detectors.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

### Social

- X: https://x.com/royosherove
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/

### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/