There
may come a time where you need to remove SharePoint 2010 from a server
to allow that server to be used by another application. Or you may
upgrade your hardware in the future and want to repurpose the server
for another role. The process of uninstalling SharePoint 2010 is the
same for all editions of SharePoint 2010—the only difference is where
you initiate the uninstall command that begins the removal of
SharePoint 2010.
To uninstall SharePoint 2010, you run the Setup.exe
program that you ran when you installed it. However, during the
uninstall process, when the installation program does an inventory of
the software that is on the server, it will not allow you to perform an
installation but instead will request that you choose to repair or
remove the installation.
Note:
Alternately, you can
also remove SharePoint using the uninstall option within Add/Remove
programs located in Control Panel of your operating system.
Follow these steps to uninstall SharePoint 2010 from your server using Setup.exe.
Locate
the directory that contains the Setup.exe file for the edition of
SharePoint 2010 that you are uninstalling. For instance, if you
installed SharePoint 2010, then locate the Setup.exe file for
SharePoint 2010. Alternatively, if you installed SharePoint Foundation
2010 and you want to remove it, then locate the Setup.exe file for
SharePoint Foundation 2010.
Double-click
the Setup.exe file to display the original installation startup screen.
Choose Install SharePoint Server or Install SharePoint Foundation,
depending on which Setup.exe file you ran. At this point, SharePoint
takes inventory and discovers an installation of SharePoint already
exists. Then you will see the Change Your Installation Of SharePoint
2010 page, as shown in Figure 1.
Select the Remove option and then click the Continue button. In the Verify Removal dialog box shown in Figure 2, you will be asked to confirm your selection to remove SharePoint from the server.
If
you click No in this dialog box, the removal of SharePoint 2010 is
canceled. However, if you click Yes, the uninstall process continues.
Another dialog box, shown in Figure 3,
displays to warn you that if you continue with the uninstall process,
you cannot undo it, and it might result in partial loss of
functionality for sites that depend on that installation. It also warns
you that if you installed the current SharePoint installation over a
previous version of SharePoint, or if you Click Cancel after you click
OK in the dialog box, you will have to run the SharePoint Products
Configuration Wizard again to reconfigure your server farm. It again
asks if you want to uninstall SharePoint 2010.
When you confirm the uninstall, you will see the page shown in Figure 4
that shows the progress of the uninstall process. However, this page
does not provide any really helpful information about what actions are
being performed, or what percentage of the uninstall has been
completed, or even the amount of time remaining before the uninstall
completes.
When
the uninstall process is complete, you will see a final page that tells
you that the uninstall has completed successfully, so you should now
have a SharePoint-free
server. However, after successfully performing an uninstall, note that
the following SharePoint characteristics still exist on the server.
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14
Microsoft SharePoint Workspace Audit Service
SQL databases including Configuration and Central Administration
SharePoint Web Services Web Application in IIS 7.0
SharePoint Web Services Application Pool in IIS 7.0
To reiterate once again
the point about doing fresh installations of your software, these items
all still existed on a server after performing a complete installation
of SharePoint 2010 and then a removal of SharePoint. Always perform
clean installations—this includes starting with a new operating system
installation, not an upgraded operating system.
