Features not being deleted after removing the solution

Question

Hello All,

I have removed the wsp from the Operations-Solution Management.

Still in the site collection features I see the Feature I have removed.

Please help me in deleting it from the Site Features too.

Answer 1

Do something like this:

stsadm -o deactivatefeature -name "<NAME>" -url <SITE COLLECTION NAME> -force  
stsadm -o retractsolution -immediate -name <NAME OF SOLUTION> -allcontenturls  
(I'm not sure if you can do this if you've already removed the wsp.)  

Wait abit.  

It should be gone.

Answer 2

Firstly, features that are already activated are not automatically deactivated. This is "by design" and to prevent unexpected consequences. There's a blog post on deactivating and removing these by Chinmay Vasai.

Features that have been deactivated are also not necessarily removed. It depends on the feature but web parts for example are notoriously for staying around the web part gallery. There's help with getting rid of these here.

Unfortunately this is how the product behaves. It's not unusual to have to run a console application to clean up the system in this type of situation.