How to uninstall plugins in Eclipse 3.4.X or higher

Don_2648 0
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The GUI for managing plugins in Eclipse got a bit of an overhaul in version 3.4.0. This GUI is accessed via the "Software Updates..." option in the Help menu.

The option to remove the selected Mylyn plugin is greyed out. In fact, this is true of virtually every installed plugin. I know that the Mylyn plugins are optional, so why amn't I provided with an option to remove them?

plugins eclipse-plugin eclipse ide java
11 Answers

The following text is quoted from the Eclipse help docs:

The Uninstall wizard allows you to review and uninstall items in your configuration. This wizard is shown when you select items and press Uninstall... from the Installed Software page. To uninstall software from your system:

  1. Click Help > About and then click Installation Details... to open a dialog showing pages that provide more detail about your installation.

  2. Click the Installed Software tab to see a list of the software items that you have installed into your system.

  3. Select the items that you wish to uninstall.

    Click Uninstall...

The Uninstall Details page will show you a list of the items that will be uninstalled. Expanding each item will show what additional items (if any) will be uninstalled as a result of your choice.

If you change your mind about which items should be uninstalled, you may click Back to see a checkmark list of the items you selected before. You may check and uncheck different items in the list, and click Next when you are ready to continue.

  1. Click Finish to start the uninstall.

Once all of the software is uninstalled successfully, you will be prompted to restart for the Workbench. Click Yes when asked to exit and restart the Workbench for the changes to take effect.

user_1329160

There are distributions of Eclipse that come packaged with certain plugins that can't be mix-and-matched. That is the case with Mylyn, that went from a student's thesis project to an integral part of Eclipse. If you want to actually get rid of Mylyn, you may want to install Eclipse classic instead of the distribution you have, and then install the stuff you need.

The standard Eclipse distributions come with Myln.

BTW, Eclipser 3.5 completely changes all these screens :(

user_230720

While Help → About Eclipse IDE [or wherever it was in the past or will be in the future] → Installation Details → Installed Software → Uninstall... is the official and preferred way there are features/plugins the latter button of which is disabled.

Remember also that there aren't only plugins but features too. In my case I wanted to remove Mylyn and Wild Web Developer from a rather fresh Eclipse IDE for Enterprise Java and Web Developers package. I did the following.

But first a:

DISCLAIMER
Enter ECLIPSE_HOME at your own risk. Mistakes like typos might be in the following, too. I take no responsibility for whatsoever.
  • Created the directories features.DISABLED and plugins.DISABLED in Eclipse's home dir.
  • Moved *mylyn* from ECLIPSE_HOME/features to ECLIPSE_HOME/features.DISABLED
  • Moved *wildwebdeveloper* from ECLIPSE_HOME/features to ECLIPSE_HOME/features.DISABLED
  • Moved *mylyn* from ECLIPSE_HOME/plugins to ECLIPSE_HOME/plugins.DISABLED
  • Moved *wildwebdeveloper* from ECLIPSE_HOME/plugins to ECLIPSE_HOME/plugins.DISABLED

After starting Eclipse there were about a dozen "not found" errors in Eclipse's Error Log view. If you double-click on each of them you can see which dependency plugin JAR(s) haven't been found.

  • Set the Error Log view's filter to just display errors and warnings.
  • Moved the dependency plugin *.jars mentioned in the errors from ECLIPSE_HOME/plugins.DISABLED back to ECLIPSE_HOME/plugins one by one (with Eclipse restart after each) until no "not found" error appeared in the view any longer. It were nine *mylyn*.jars in the end.:
*.mylyn.commons.core_*
*.mylyn.commons.net_*
*.mylyn.commons.notifications.core_*
*.mylyn.commons.notifications.ui_*
*.mylyn.commons.screenshots.ui_*
*.mylyn.commons.ui_*
*.mylyn.commons.workbench_*
*.mylyn.commons.wikitext.markdown_*
*.mylyn.commons.wikitext.*

Note that this applies to a rather fresh Eclipse 2021-03 (4.19.0) installation. It might be different from one – even patch – version to the other.

Furthermore:

  • Keep Eclipse's Error Log view open for a while. The underlying OSGi activates bundles (plugins) on the fly if they are referenced from an other bundle (plugin) for the first time. And if one isn't there then...

  • Check the Error Log view especially after installing new features/plugins. They might rely on plugins/JARs you moved to .DISABLED. If that's the case move the according JAR(s) back to ECLIPSE_HOME/plugins and/or ECLIPSE_HOME/features.

  • If something doesn't work as it did in the past once in the future remember what you did and ... → Error Log view.

user_17447740

I'm running (a relatively fresh copy of) 3.4.1. I was able to select the same plug-in shown in your screen shot (Mylyn Bridge: Java Development) to get an enabled "Uninstall..." button. I'd suggest getting the latest updates and trying again.

joelneely_35250

It sure looks like there's no way to do this.

I just had exactly this problem with a fresh download of the Eclipse Java IDE (Ganymede SR2). I didn't want Mylyn, but I didn't want "Eclipse Classic", either, because the download was twice the size, I presume because it includes source.

The apparent solution was to update everything and restart Eclipse, after which the "Uninstall..." button became enabled for the Mylyn plugins. Unfortunately, this only uninstalled the most recent, updated version (3.0.11 IIRC), reverting to the un-uninstallable 3.0.5.

David_Moles_273580
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