Remove Member Domain Controller

From time to time, it’s necessary to demote a domain controller within your Active Directory Forest, either because of a tombstone, or just because…

*** NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DATA LOSS *** MAKE A BACKUP FIRST, YOU ARE USING THIS ON YOUR OWN FREE WILL BY PROCEEDING

Reference Article:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771844%28v=ws.10%29.aspx

make sure you are logged in as the Domain Administrator to perform this action

open up DCPROMO from a search bar

click next

MAKE SURE you have other Global Catalog Servers Available before you remove, otherwise you are going to be screwed (wish Microsoft would say just that)

***** DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT!!! check the box that says “remove the entire domain” LEAVE THAT UN-CHECKED, and click Next

on this step you do want to delete DNS Delegation

Enter Your Domain Administrator Credentials

Enter the New Admin Password

review one final time for your own sanity

now it’s going to do it’s thing, for a long time (you may as well check the reboot on completion, since you will need to reboot anyways for changes to take effect)

it should show something like so:

if you are having troubles, and it needs a username/password, check Active Directory Sites & Services

make sure no objects are protected from accidental deletion

it may have trouble pulling out DNS ( it will remove itself after the pending reboot)

done, hit finish

when you click finish, go ahead and do a reboot

If all went well, your domain controller has been removed (if all did not, you are going to want to restore a system-state backup on your FSMO Server)

That’s it!

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