Uninstallation Of ADDS Role In Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 4

Followed by my previous post on ADDS installation on Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 4, I’ll be discussing how to uninstall ADDS in this post. Ideally, uninstalling the ADDS role means that you’re demoting your domain controller to be a normal server. Now, let’s take a look at the steps involved in demoting a domain controller.

 

1. Open Server manager and click the “Manage” button and choose “Remove Roles and Features," as shown in the image below: 
   
   
   
   
2. On the next screen, click “Next." 
   
   
   
   
3. On selecting the destination Server pane, select the Server from which you want to remove the ADDS role, as shown in the image below:
   
   
   
   
4. Choose the Server and click next. In this scenario, I have only one Server in the Server pool and this is the one that’s running the ADDS role. Click next and it will list the list of roles.
   
   
   
   
5. Choose “Active Directory Domain Services" role, as shown above and click next. This will give you a Window that will ask you to remove the dependent features for ADDS. Please go ahead and click “Remove features" as shown in the image below: 
   
   
   
   
6. You will get a Window, as shown below. Please go ahead and click on “Demote this domain controller" link.
   
   
   
   
7. This will take you to a screen, as shown below. Please go ahead and click next. You need to choose the appropriate option.
   
   
   
   
8. I’m choosing the first option which says, “Force the removal of this domain controller" and then click next.
   
   
   
   
9. On the next screen, please validate all the roles running on the domain controller and click the checkbox which says, “Proceed with removal" and click next.
   
   
   
   
   
   
10. The next screen will be prompting you for a new password. Please go ahead and specify the new password and click next.
    
    Note - This password will be different from the normal domain administrator password.
    
    
    
    
11. The next screen will ask you to review the changes made and once you’re done validating it, please go ahead and click the “demote” button to demote this Server, as shown in the image below: 
    
    
    
    Note - Clicking on the view script button will generate the script that runs in the background when this activity was performed .You can use this script for future purposes also, if you want to perform a ADDS uninstallation on any other domain controller .
    
    
    
    
12. Finally, once this is done, your Server will be restarted and then you will notice that this Server is no longer a domain controller. You can confirm this on the login screen itself, where you would just see the login username and not the domain name prefixed to it. In my case, I’m logging in as the administrator and you won’t see the domain name prefixed before.
    
    
    
    
13. Before uninstalling the ADDS role, this is how the login screen looked. Check the login screen below. You can see my domain name “VIGNESH”, prefixed before the login name.