Currently, in July 2025 with Pro 3.5.2, whenever a fellow paying customer experiences performance issues in Pro, the first answers are usually to read the troubleshooting guide and to do a clean re-install of Pro.
Esri Australia published a blog article covering the basic uninstall, deleting registry entries and folders, etc.
Sneezing while editing your registry is not advised and can lead to total system failure.
This idea:
Provide an in-app initiated tool that will do a full clean re-install of the current version, with options to repair/clean/prompt for any related dependencies such as .Net and list the latest recognised stable version of the dependency (as tested and verified by Esri).
This Idea intersects 'Backup and validation tool for config':
https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-ideas/provide-a-config-profile-backup-amp-validation/idi-p/...
and 'Revert to previous versions':
https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-ideas/provide-efficient-way-to-revert-to-previous/idi-p/149...
The tool should abstract the entire process of backing up a user's config, removing Pro and ALL its traces, re-installing Pro from online media (preferred, to make sure best media version is used) , then validate the user's config, and finally present a list of config settings for the user to individually adopt or discard. Any installed AddIns must be listed, and if from Esri Partners such as XTools, the latest compatible version must be listed for the user to source.
This is complicated but with the 're-install' advice now being one of the most prolific, it would save a lot of time and frustration.
I lodged an Idea about Pro and containerisation - which was merged with a related but not similar Idea. See details:
https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-ideas/allow-for-multiple-versions-of-arcgis-pro/idc-p/15940...
Having Pro in a more or less self-contained bucket could make this process simpler.
Brownie Points for Esri to translate the Pro codebase into a more self-healing paradigm where the Diagnostic Monitor becomes a Monitor, Diagnose, and Repair Tool that can fix things as they go wrong, or at least let the user know they've just installed an app or addin that overwrote something Pro depends on.
This Idea does not negate the requirement for a culture at Esri where advising the user to delete their profile (even their Windows User Profile!!), re-install Pro, and reconfigure everything from scratch, should be the absolute last resort, not the first drawn horse.
