How to remove Pulse Desktop connections programmatically?

[smartd]

We are upgrading from Juniper Pulse to PCS 5.3 Pulse Win client.  I want to delete all existing connections so only the new connection pushed from the PCS is available.  In testing, the old client is removed, and the new one is installed (works best in IE). However, old connections are kept.  

I tried to delete them in the ProgramData\Pulse Secure\Connectionstore directory, but some of the files are owned by SYSTEM.  

Is there a way to do this short of asking each user to delete everything in their Pulse client before upgrading.

[zanyterp]

Short answer: no
Long answer: yes, but deleting connections will be easier
You can achieve this by doing the following:
create two preconfig files: one empty, one with the new connections
import the empty one first
import the new connection one

[nshores]

Hey, I ran into this exact issue and wrote a powershell script to automate the changing of connection proifes, check it out if you are in this situation!

http://opsandautomation.com/2018/12/11/updating-pulse-secure-connection-profiles-with-powershell/