Removal of Citrix XenDesktop / XenApp 7.x VDA fails with InstallFailure 1603

Some of you might have seen the following problem – the removal of the VDA failed:

If you check the details you get some more information’s – e.g. the removal of the Citrix Profile Management failed.

Removal of MSI Product ‘profilemgt_x64.msi’ (‘{9321930C-A53F-452C-80D5-AE1A8D69D9C0}’) failed with code ‘InstallFailure’ (1603).

Or the VdaMonitorPlugin_x64.MSI cannot be removed.

Well – but there is no solution shown how to fix it nor you can find a documentation from Citrix to solve the problem. You can’t just start the removal from the Control Panel – they are not shown under Programs.

Luckily Microsoft has published a really helpful Tool that helps to remove “problematic” Applications. After downloading open the Tool and press Next.

Now select Uninstalling.

You now get a much bigger list (compared to the one under Programs) – here you can see all Programs and their “Sub-Programs”. Now select your faulting part of the VDA – e.g. Citrix Profile Management.

Select Yes, try uninstall to start the removal.

The Tool now tries to remove the selected package….

… and resolves problems found during the removal.

After some time you should see the following dialog:

The problematic VDA-Component is now removed.

You can now restart the VDA removal like before – if another failing component is shown – just repeat the steps above.