How Can I Remove Feeds from the NI Package Manager?

Issue Details

When I open the NI Package Manager and click on Settings, Feeds for some of the listed packages and programs the Remove button is grayed out and I cannot remove those feeds.
For others, I am able to click the Remove button, but whenever I restart NI Package Manager, the feeds are automatically regenerated.


Figure 1: Feed Management Tab in the Package Manager GUI

How can I remove the listed feeds permanently from my NI Package Manager?

Solution

There are three different locations where feeds for NI Package Manager (NIPM) are stored. For each location the type and behavior of the feeds are different.
A description of each location and the behavior of each type of feed is included below:

1. C:\Program Files\National Instruments\NI Package Manager\Settings\ni-package-manager-released.ini

   The feeds stored in the Program Files directory get configured automatically when installing NIPM. These feeds cannot be removed with the Remove button in the Package Manager GUI inside the Feed Management tab in Figure 1.
   To remove these feeds from your configuration, open the ni-package-manager-released.ini file in a text editor, remove the unwanted feeds, and save it.

2. C:\ProgramData\National Instruments\NI Package Manager\Settings\nipkg.ini
   (Please note that the ProgramData directory may be hidden by Windows so it might be necessary to change your settings to display hidden files and folders)
   

   The feeds stored in the ProgramData directory get registered during an NI software installation through NIPM. These are usually feeds registered when installing a feed from the Browse Products tab in Package Manager. These feeds can be removed via the Package Manager GUI using the Remove button. However, if the feed is a Store Item downloaded/installed from the Browse Products tab, by default, NIPM will re-register the feed when NIPM is opened on a computer with an active internet connection.
   To permanently remove these feeds, this default functionality needs to be disabled. In order to do this, a configuration file enabling or disabling various settings of the NIPM needs to be created and placed next to the NIPackageManager.exe file in the directory C:\Program Files\National Instruments\NI Package Manager.
   
   
   
   Figure 2: Config File is saved in the same directory as the NIPM executable to disable feed regeneration
    

   In the configuration file, the setting RegisterMissingFeeds needs to be set to False to prevent the feeds from regenerating:
   
   <setting name="RegisterMissingFeeds" serializeAs="String">
      <value>False</value>
   </setting>
   
   At the bottom of this page you can find an attached .config file with the necessary settings to prevent feed regeneration.
   Please save this file to C:\Program Files\National Instruments\NI Package Manager to permanently remove feeds with the Remove button in the Package Manager GUI.

3. C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\National Instruments\NI Package Manager\nipkg.ini

   ​​​​​​The feeds located in the AppData directory are feeds that have been manually added to NIPM via the Feed Management tab. These feeds can be removed via the Remove button in the GUI and do not regenerate automatically.