Remove server from farm - MOSS / WSS

Written by Administrator

Monday, 01 March 2010 21:25

You can find several articles how to remove server from farm (moss or wss) they all discusing about "best" option how to remove the server from farm. The Configuration Wizard method. BUT, this option is not present anymore, at least i was not able to find it anywhere. So best option for me is psconfig one, or if server is offline, the Central Administration one. Read more for details.

If you wish to NOT remove Sharepoint from server (if you plan to use the server later, or in another farm) and you just want to remove it from actual farm use PSCONFIG command - the command line version of Config Wizard. The step is very easy:

Connect to server you want to remove from farm
Open a command prompt to c:\program files\common files\Microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin (the SharePoint installed path)
Run following command:
psconfig –cmd configdb –disconnect

This will gracefully disconnect server you are logged on , from farm.

2. If you cannot connect to server anymore (crashed, formatted etc etc.. )
Remove the server from farm via the SharePoint Central Administration site. This way is easy and quickly, almost no latency, the action was completed. But this way don’t disconnect the server from the SharePoint database.

The page you are looginf for is located in Central Administration | Operations | Servers in Farm

Select "Remove server" next to one you want to remove.

3. If you are NOT planning to use the server for MOSS, use ADD /REMOVE PROGRAMS for uninstallation and disconnect from farm .
It removes the server if you want to clean up the server. This method also uninstalls the SharePoint from the server.

Use Add/Remove Programs in the control panel.
In "Add/Remove Programs", you can remove "Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007", and it wills pop-up a warning, Click Ok to continue.

The above has been found and used on: http://insidecsharp.blogspot.com/2010/01/remove-server-from-moss-farm.html and http://blogs.pointbridge.com/Blogs/robinson_will/Pages/Post.aspx?_ID=17

Cheers KbNk;