Remove a failover cluster instance (Setup)

Applies to: SQL Server

Use this procedure to uninstall an Always On SQL Server failover cluster instance.

Important

To update or remove a SQL Server failover cluster, you must be a local administrator with permission to login as a service on all nodes of the Windows Server failover cluster.

Before you begin

Consider the following important points before you uninstall a SQL Server failover cluster instance:

  • If SQL Server Native Client is uninstalled by accident, SQL Server resources will fail to start. To reinstall SQL Server Native Client, run the SQL Server Setup program to install SQL Server prerequisites.

  • If you uninstall a failover cluster that has more than one SQL IP cluster resource, you must remove the additional SQL IP resources using Failover Cluster Manager or PowerShell.

For information about command prompt syntax, see Install SQL Server 2016 from the Command Prompt.

To uninstall a SQL Server failover cluster instance

  1. To uninstall a SQL Server failover cluster, use the Remove Node functionality provided by SQL Server Setup to remove each node individually. For more information, see Add or Remove Nodes in an Always On Failover Cluster (Setup).

See Also

View and Read SQL Server Setup Log Files