Active Directory Cookbook for windows server 2003- P7:If you are familiar with the O'Reilly Cookbook format that can be seen in other popular books, such as the Perl Cookbook, Java Cookbook, and DNS and BIND Cookbook, then the layout of this book will not be anything new to you. The book is composed of 18 chapters, each containing 10-30 recipes for performing a specific Active Directory task. Within each recipe are four sections: problem, solution, discussion, and see also. | Discussion Forcibly removing a domain controller from a domain is not a task that should be taken lightly. If you need to replace the server quickly consider giving it a different name just to ensure that nothing confuses the new server with the old one. If the domain controller was the last one in the domain you ll need to manually remove the domain from the forest as well. See Recipe for more information on removing orphaned domains. Here are some additional issues to consider when you forcibly remove a domain controller Seize any FSMO roles the DC may have had. If the DC was a global catalog server ensure there is another global catalog server in the site. If the DC was a DNS server ensure there is another DNS server that can handle the load. If the DC was the RID FSMO master check to make sure duplicate SIDs have not been issued see Recipe . Check to see if the DC hosted any application partitions and if so consider making another server a replica server for those application partitions see Recipe . If the former domain controller that you forcibly removed is still on the network you should strongly consider rebuilding it to avoid potential conflicts from it trying to re-inject itself back into Active Directory. If that is not an option you can try this option to force the server to not recognize itself as a domain controller. 1. Change the ProductOptions value under the HKLM System CurrentControlSet Control key from LanmanNT to ServerNT. 2. Reboot the server. 3. Delete the NTDS folder. Alternatively if you are running Windows Server 2003 or Windows 2000 SP4 and later you can run dcpromo forceremoval from a command line to forcibly remove Active Directory from a server. See MS KB 332199 for more information. See Also Recipe for removing an orphaned domain Recipe for seizing FSMO roles MS KB 216498 HOW TO Remove Data in Active Directory After an Unsuccessful Domain Controller Demotion and MS KB 332199 Using the DCPROMO .
