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I'm struggling with uninstalling IIS from Windows Server 2008. I went into Server Manager > Roles > Remove Roles > unchecked IIS > that prompted me to also remove dependencies. Every time the "Resume Configuration Wizard" continues after a restart, I keep getting another dialog to restart. After 3 tries, it says it failed to uninstall. Note, the 3 try failure screen shot was from previous attempts to uninstall WAS (Windows Process Activation Service). And a dependency for WAS is IIS. However, I get the 3 try failure with this set as well. What am I doing wrong?

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JustBeingHelpful
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  • i think you don't necessarily need to uninstall IIS, you just need to go into services and disable the IIS service, Start > Administrative Tools > Services – user16081-JoeT Jul 22 '13 at 21:56
  • I've tried that already. See my other question, from where this all started. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17792419/iis-7-configuration-file-is-not-well-formed-xml – JustBeingHelpful Jul 22 '13 at 22:11
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    bummer; if this is a production system you might want to consider migrating to a fresh install. – user16081-JoeT Jul 22 '13 at 22:13
  • Luckily it's not. It's just QA. But our server folks are working on getting a backup of this server for a restore. I'm bound and determined to fix it before they get the backup from tape, 1.5 days from now. :-) Without it, I can't test anything this week. – JustBeingHelpful Jul 22 '13 at 22:16
  • Flatten and rebuild it. Don't mess with going under the hood on this one to fix it. – Techie Joe Jul 23 '13 at 00:05
  • That's what I was thinking. Have you attempted this before also? I'm guessing it's not worth the hassle from your comment? – JustBeingHelpful Jul 23 '13 at 00:37
  • @MacGyver I've attempted things like this for not just this (previous Windows server versions not this one) but other programs as well. Sure you could probably hack the registry and files involved and clean everything out but is the time spent doing this really worth it? Flattening and rebuilding it gives you a clean slate to work with and you won't have to worry about the potential odd registry hack or dll file you missed when you manually cleaned it under the hood. – Techie Joe Jul 23 '13 at 00:44
  • true, true ... I'll leave it be – JustBeingHelpful Jul 23 '13 at 01:28
  • check this shit out.. I found the root cause by re-doing my steps on another server. When I replaced "3.5.0.0" with "4.0.0.0" in the Web.Config instead of replacing the actual lines, it caused the corrupt XML file. That section still works in IIS 6 which is interesting. Damn Microsoft!! See my answer to this question.. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17779128/asp-net-generic-handler-not-getting-called-after-net-3-5-to-net-4-0-upgrade/17800921#17800921 – JustBeingHelpful Jul 23 '13 at 03:19
  • Here's the original problem this version change in the Web.Config caused.. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17792419/iis-7-configuration-file-is-not-well-formed-xml/17800935#17800935 – JustBeingHelpful Jul 23 '13 at 03:20

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Answer: Restore the entire server from backup.

Lesson Learned: Before a web server deployment, copy the contents out of folder C:\Windows\system32\inetsrv\config\ before ever changing IIS 7 configuration or making Web.Config changes.

Original issue: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17792419/configuration-file-is-not-well-formed-xml-2/17800935#17800935

Caused by changes from this work: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17779128/asp-net-generic-handler-not-getting-called-after-net-3-5-to-net-4-0-upgrade/17800921#17800921

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JustBeingHelpful
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  • NOTE: if you do this from Windows 7, it's possible. But I haven't been successful with uninstalling from Windows Server 2008. In Windows 7, go to Administrative Tools > Programs and Features > Turn Windows Features On/Off > uncheck all dependencies including IIS features. To find the dependencies, go into Administrative Tools > Services > Right click "World Wide Web Publishing" > Properties > check dependency list. – JustBeingHelpful May 26 '14 at 23:03
  • Windows Server 2012 R2 uninstalls IIS just fine, so it's only broken for Windows Server 2008 (from what I can tell) – JustBeingHelpful Nov 30 '15 at 20:06