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Clean Application and Clustering Configuration After Uninstalling Windows Server AppFabric

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After you uninstall AppFabric, you may encounter issues with application configuration and caching configuration. This topic describes how to resolve those configuration issues.

Clean web.config Files After Uninstallation

When you use Windows Server AppFabric, you may configure a server, site, or application to use AppFabric-specific features. This can cause your applications to be non-functional after you uninstall Windows Server AppFabric. As a result, after uninstallation, you may need to clean up your application configuration. This can involve cleaning every web.config file in the three basic scopes of the IIS hierarchy: server, site, and application.

You can clean application configuration files by either using an automated cleanup tool or by manually cleaning the files.

Using the Uninstall Cleanup Tool

The AppFabric Uninstall Cleanup Tool will clean application configuration files for you. To run the tool, click AppFabric Uninstall Cleanup Tool (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=188172).

To perform manual steps to clean web.config files, perform the steps below.

Locate and open the server web.config file

  1. In Notepad, open the root web.config in the %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework[64]\v4.0.xxxxx\Config folder, and clean as described in the last section below.

Locate and open site web.config files

  1. Launch IIS Manager by clicking Start, clicking Run, typing inetmgr, and clicking OK.

  2. Locate and select your Web site in the left navigation pane by expanding the server node, and then expanding the Sites node.

  3. Right click the web site, and then select Explore.

  4. Locate the web.config file in the Explorer window that opens up. You are done if there is no web.config file in that directory.

  5. Open the file in Notepad, and clean as described in the last section below.

Locate and open application and virtual directory web.config files

  1. Launch IIS Manager by clicking Start, clicking Run, typing inetmgr, and clicking OK.

  2. Locate and select your application or virtual directory in the left navigation pane by expanding the server node, and then expanding the Sites node, and then expanding the Application or Virtual Directory node.

  3. Right click the application or virtual directory, and then select Explore.

  4. Locate the web.config file in the Explorer window that opens up. You are done if there is no web.config file in that directory.

  5. Open the file in Notepad, and clean as described in the last section below.

Clean the web.config files

Clean web.config files in the server, site, application, and virtual directory scopes as follows.

  1. With the web.config file open in Notepad, search for microsoft.applicationServer, and if there is a match, remove the entire section from <microsoft.applicationServer> to </microsoft.applicationServer>.

  2. Search for workflowInstanceControl, and if there is a match, remove the <workflowInstanceControl/> element and all of its attributes.

Clean Cache Cluster Configuration After Uninstallation

After uninstalling AppFabric, you need to remove cluster entries in caching configuration and disable a firewall exception.

Remove Cache Node Entries in Cache Cluster Configuration

The AppFabric uninstallation program does not remove cache node entries from the caching configuration store. If you uninstall a node of a multiple-node cluster, and do not run an AppFabric configuration cmdlet to unconfigure the node, the cluster will still be configured for the node. To unconfigure it, run the Remove-CacheHost cmdlet on that node. For more information, see Remove-CacheHost (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=185870).

Disable Remote Service Management Firewall Exception

After you uninstall the caching features from an AppFabric caching server, the AppFabric setup program will disable the Windows Server AppFabric: AppFabric Caching Service firewall rule group, removing it as an exception. Upon installation, the setup program creates this group and adds rules to it. However, if you enable the Remote Service Management firewall rule group upon setup, the setup program will not disable it upon uninstallation. You will have to disable Remote Service Management manually on each node of the cluster, if you choose to do so. After any of the caching features of AppFabric has been uninstalled, review your firewall configuration.