Remove Windows SharePoint Services

1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click SharePoint Central Administration.
2. On the Central Administration page, under Virtual Server Configuration, click Configure virtual server settings.
3. On the Virtual Server List page, select the virtual server you want to configure.
4. On the Virtual Server Settings page, under Virtual Server Management, click Remove Windows SharePoint Services from Virtual Server.
5. On the Remove Windows SharePoint Services from Virtual Server page, select one of the following:
   • Remove without deleting content databases

     This removes only the Windows SharePoint Services folders from the virtual server — the content database remains intact, so you can reconnect to it later using the same virtual server or a different one.

   • Remove and delete content databases

     This both removes the Windows SharePoint Services folders from the virtual server and deletes the content database. You will not be able to reconstruct the sites previously stored on that virtual server unless you have a backup.

6. Click OK.

You can use the unextendvs operation with the Stsadm.exe command line utility to remove Windows SharePoint Services from a virtual server. The unextendvs operation takes the -url parameter and the optional -deletecontent parameter. When you use unextendvs without the -deletecontent parameter, it leaves the content databases in place, so that you can reconnect to the content for a virtual server. When you include the -deletecontent parameter, the content databases are removed and the virtual server is removed from the configuration database.

For example, to remove Windows SharePoint Services from a virtual server, but preserve the content databases, use the unextendvs operation with syntax like the following:

stsadm -o unextendvs -url http://servername

To remove Windows SharePoint Services from a virtual server and remove the content databases permanently, use the unextendvs operation with syntax like the following:

stsadm -o unextendvs -url http://servername -deletecontent

When you use the unextendvs operation with the -deletecontent parameter, you cannot reconnect to the site content later.

Note  You must be an administrator on the server computer to uninstall Windows SharePoint Services.

If you want to remove Windows SharePoint Services from a server computer entirely, you can uninstall it by using Add or Remove Programs in Control Panel. Uninstalling Windows SharePoint Services does not remove any related products, such as the Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine (Windows) 2000 (WMSDE), that were installed. You must uninstall these programs separately.

1. On the server computer, click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Add or Remove Programs.
2. Select Windows SharePoint Services, and then click Remove.