How to rename Visual Studio

Question

I just downloaded Visual Studio and the name is showing like this "Visual Studio Community 2017 (2)". Everything is working but that "2" at the end is just annoying. And of course first thing I've tried was reinstalling. Anyone can help me with this? Thanks in advance.

Screenshot of how it looks

And by the way my computer is completely new and I've never had Visual Studio installed on this computer.

Answer 1

The issue is that the instance of visual studio has a nickname associated with it. Use the following instructions to change the nickname of an existing Visual Studio (tested with VS2017) installation (partially lifted from https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/99059/not-able-to-easiliy-change-installation-nickname.html):

1. Set the nickname in the *.isolation.ini files in %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\[Version]\Common7\IDE.

2. Set the nickname in the state.json file in %ProgramData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Packages\_Instances\[InstanceId]\state.json

3. Open regedit, go to under path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall, find there "Visual Studio {your version} 2017 (2)". Rename string to be without " (2)" - this will change application name appearance in control panel / program and features.

You'll need admin permission to modify these files. If you want to remove the nickname altogether, just set it to an empty string (e.g. Nickname= in the .ini files, "nickname": "" in the .json).

Note that this will only have affect within VS tools, such as the VS installer in the screenshot you posted. Any names with the suffix in, for example, the Start/Windows menu will need to be renamed manually.