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Delete a Zone

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

You can use this procedure to delete a Domain Name System (DNS) zone. If you are deleting a primary zone, you should first delete the zone on all secondary or stub servers before you delete the zone on the primary server.

You can complete this procedure using either the DNS Manager snap-in or the dnscmd command-line tool.

Membership in Administrators, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure. Review details about using the appropriate accounts and group memberships at Local and Domain Default Groups (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83477).

Deleting a zone

  • Using the Windows interface

  • Using a command line

To delete a zone using the Windows interface

  1. Open DNS Manager. To open DNS Manager, click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click DNS.

  2. In the console tree, right-click the applicable zone, and then click Delete.

  3. When you are asked to confirm that you want to delete the zone, click OK.

Warning

Deleting an Active Directory–integrated zone effectively deletes the zone and eliminates its use at all other DNS servers that use the same directory store of zone data.

To delete a zone using a command line

  1. Open a command prompt. To open an elevated Command Prompt window, click Start, point to All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.

  2. At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:

    dnscmd <ServerName> /ZoneDelete <ZoneName> [/DsDel] [/f]
Parameter Description

dnscmd

The command-line tool for managing DNS servers.

<ServerName>

Required. Specifies the DNS host name of the DNS server. You can also type the IP address of the DNS server. To specify the DNS server on the local computer, you can also type a period (.)

/ZoneDelete

Required. Deletes the zone that is specified by ZoneName.

<ZoneName>

Required. Specifies the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the zone that you are deleting.

/DsDel

Deletes the zone from AD DS.

/f

Performs the command without asking for confirmation. If you omit this parameter, you are prompted to confirm the deletion of the resource record.

To view the complete syntax for this command, at a command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:

dnscmd /ZoneDelete /help