How to: Remove a SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance (Setup)
Use this procedure to uninstall a SQL Server failover clustered 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 failover cluster.
Before you begin
Consider the following important points before you uninstall a SQL Server failover cluster:
On a computer running SQL Server 2008 along with previous SQL Server versions, Enterprise Manager and other programs that depend on SQL-DMO may be disabled. This can occur in the following situations:
Side-by-side installations of SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2000, and/or SQL Server 7.0, where any of the versions is uninstalled.
Side-by-side installations of SQL Server 2000 with SQL Server 2008, where SQL Server 2000 is installed after SQL Server 2008.
This issue is due to removal of the registration for the SQL Server 2008 SQL-DMO COM library. To re-enable SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Manager and other programs with SQL-DMO dependencies, register SQL-DMO by running 'regsvr32.exe sqldmo.dll' from a command prompt.
If SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2008 are installed side-by-side in a clustered environment, SQL Server Native Client should not be uninstalled if you uninstall SQL Server 2008. The SQL Server Resource DLL from SQL Server 2008 always uses SQL Server Native Client to connect to SQL Server. When SQL Server 2008 is installed, the SQL Server Cluster Resource DLL is upgraded. When SQL Server 2008 is uninstalled, the SQL Server Resource DLL is not replaced with the version required by SQL Server 2000. Leaving SQL Server Native Client on cluster nodes allows the SQL Server Resource DLL to continue to connect to instances of SQL Server 2000.
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 cluster administrator.
For information about command prompt syntax, see How to: Install SQL Server 2008 from the Command Prompt.
To uninstall a SQL Server failover cluster
- 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 How to: Add or Remove Nodes in a SQL Server Failover Cluster (Setup).