How to uninstall the Cluster service on a Windows Server 2003 cluster

This article describes how to remove the Cluster service on a Windows Server 2003-based cluster.

The files for the Cluster service are installed, by default, on computers that run either Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition or Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition. In earlier versions of Windows, this feature had been in the Add/Remove Programs tool.

You cannot remove the Cluster service, but you can return it to an unconfigured state. To remove the cluster service from a failover node, follow these steps:

1. Start Cluster Administrator (CluAdmin.exe).
2. Right-click the node, and then click Stop the Cluster service.
   
   Note: Do not perform this step if this server is the last node in the cluster.
3. Right-click the node, and then click Evict Node.
   
   This step returns the cluster to its original unconfigured state. You can re-add it later to the same or to a different cluster.

To remove the cluster service from the last node, follow these steps:

1. Start Cluster Administrator (CluAdmin.exe).
2. Right-click the node, and then click Evict Node.
   
   Note The cluster service must be running if the cluster was configured to use the “Enable Kerberos authentication” option.
3. Delete the computer object (network name) from Active Directory, and replicate for changes to take effect.

If you cannot start the Cluster service, or if you have trouble removing the node, you can manually unconfigure the Cluster service:

1. Run the Cmd.exe program to open a command prompt.
2. At the command prompt, type cluster node nodename /forcecleanup, and then press ENTER.
   
   Note: If the Cluster service does not exist in the registry, the command does not respond. To create a place holder, type the following line at the command line, and then press ENTER:
   sc create clussvc

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