Removing roles on your server in Windows Server 2008

At some point, you may decide to remove a role that you no longer need. Removing a role in the past was error prone because you couldn't be sure you had removed all the component parts. Windows Server 2008 improves on this process through the Remove Roles Wizard. The following steps describe how to remove a role you have installed on the server:

1. Open Server Manager and choose Roles in the left pane. You will see a Role Summary view.

2. Click Remove Roles. Server Manager displays the Before You Begin page of the Remove Roles
Wizard dialog box. Make sure you read the instructions on this page before you proceed. You can avoid displaying this page each time you start the wizard by checking Skip This Page by Default.

3. Click Next. The Remove Roles Wizard displays a list of roles. The wizard automatically grays out any roles you haven't installed.

4. Put a check mark next to the role you want to remove. The Remove Roles Wizard adds steps to the process as necessary to remove the role completely. Not every role requires that you perform additional steps, so you may not see any additional roles.

5. Perform any required configuration. Click Next for each additional configuration step.

6. Perform Step 5 as often as necessary to configure the removal process for each role. Eventually you reach the Configuration Installation Selections page. This page tells you what the wizard will remove.

7. Verify the removal information, and then click Remove. You see the Removal Progress page. An indicator at the bottom of the page provides information on how much of the removal process is complete. When the removal process is complete, The Remove Roles Wizard displays the Removal Results page, where you can see the results of the removal process. In most cases, this page also tells you that you must reboot the server to complete the removal process.

8. Click Close. The Remove Roles Wizard asks whether you want to restart the server now. To prevent damage to your server, you normally should reboot immediately.

9. Click Yes. The server reboots. After the server reboots, you see a Resuming Configuration dialog box. Eventually, the Removal Results dialog box returns and you see the results of the configuration process.

10. Click Close.

Tags: Server Manager,server roles

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