Forcibly remove failover cluster feature.

I was asked to take a clone of Windows 2008 server and release it to appliation team as a replacement server for another standalone Windows 2008 server. Clone was successfully completed and found that the source of the clone is a cluster node. Hence, I had to remove the filover cluster. As this was a virtual server I had the liability of disconnecting it from network and conencted using local admin account. Unfortunately, it was not allowing to uninstall cluster, it required AD authentication. Taking the server back to network and trying to remove the cluster was challenging as this had the possibilities of impacting the existing cluster setup. Sever Manager will not allow you to remove the cluster feature as its still a part of a cluster. Hence, I was then able to find a work around using the registry.

1. Take the complete backup of the registry.
2. Locate HKLM\CurrentControlSet\Services\
3. Delete the keys “ClusDisk” & “ClusSvc”
4. Now try uninstalling the Failover CLustering.
5. You will be prompted with “Have you removed this server from the cluster?”. Yes, I’ve removed this server from the cluster or No. I still need to remove this server from the server.”
6. Click on “Yes, I’ve removed this server from the cluster.”
7. Reboot the server.

You now has the liability of adding the same feature back and setup a new cluster.

Thanks,
WintelAdmin