How to remove plug-in from vCenter

You will find that you cannot uninstall or unregister plug-in via the Plug-in Manager.  The Plug-in Manager provides information and status of the installed plug-ins.  You can enable or disable plug-ins but not removing them.

Below are the steps to uninstall or unregister plug-in.

Access your vCenter via a web browser with the URL address http://your_vCenter_name/mob.  In this case, my vCenter is vmvc.vmdomain.org so I entered http://vmvc.vmdomain.org/mob for the URL address. If you prompted for logon credential, enter the user name and password that has administrator right on the vCenter.

This will bring you to the “Managed Object Type: ManagedObjectReference:ServiceInstance” page.  On this page, click on the content link.

Now on the “Data Object Type: ServiceContent” page, click on the ExtensionManager link.

Next on the “Managed Object Type: ManagedObjectReference:ExtensionManager” page, copy the name of the plug-in that you want to remove.  In this case, I am trying to remove the Capacity IQ plug-in and the name of the plug-in is com.vmware.CapacityIQ.  After taking down the name of the plug-in, click on the UnregisterExtension link.

Enter the name of plug-in that you want to remove and click on Invoke Method.

If you go back to the “Managed Object Type: ManagedObjectReference:ExtensionManager” page, you should see that the plug-in (e.g. Capacity IQ) is gone from the extension list.

The plug-in should also be gone from the Plug-in Manager.

Hopefully, VMware will build this function into the Plug-in Manager in the future.