We are trying to put together a plan to remove a site as it may leave our domain and go on it's own (the whole business unit). Removing the site I believe to be as simple as demoting DC and then deleting site from AD. However, does anybody have any advice/experience in a situation such as this? The new IT team responsible would then create their own domain, etc...but any advice on transition items I should be concerned with in particular: - Workstations at that site...currently all on our domain...do we remove from domain and put into workgroup before demoting DC - Any left over critical folders or data I should be aware of that I need to delete that would pertain to the old domain - Any issues regarding file shares etc I imagine there are quite a few IT admins that have expereinced a hand off of a business unit! Any thoughts appreciated. Thanks

> - Workstations at that site...currently all on our domain...do we > remove from domain and put into workgroup before demoting DC > If you are keeping the existing workstations in your domain, then you can simply move the subnet objects in AD Sites and Services to other sites and the workstations should start authenticating to the DCs in that site. If you are moving them to the other domain that is being created, then you will need to unjoin them and rejoin them to the new domain. > > - Any left over critical folders or data I should be aware of that I > need to delete that would pertain to the old domain > You will need to perform a metadata cleanup on the DCs in the site that you are removing, or keep the DCs and move them to a different site. > > - Any issues regarding file shares etc > > DFS is about the only one that you need to watch out for, unless you have any other applications that are site aware. -- Mike Burr MS Technologies - Development - *nix

Hello, as you said, if you just have to handover the machines and no data then demote the site DCs and remove them from AD UC. Workstations unjoin from the domain. AD sites and services must be cleaned from DCs, subnets and sites also. DNS forward/reverse lookup zones must be checked for old records, DHCP scopes(if used) removed. Personal i would at least format each server and workstation but better wipe the harddisks. Search for "Wipe Harddisk" on the web, there are also some free tools available. If you use DFS and the site DCs/ Servers are involved, remove them before from DFS.Best regards Meinolf Weber Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights.

Thanks for the replies. The equipment and data would be assumed by new IT team...new domain...workstations would join it. No DFS so no worries there. I am considering just copying off all the data needed by new team, format server's and then recopy data back on so that nothing is left over by accident. Make sense? Also, with DNS...as it is active directory integrated...I assume once I format server and start from scratch that will take care of any old zones, etc to worry about. Thanks

Hello, formattiing will still leave some recoverable files, better wipe the harddisk if you have problems that someone will be able to recover them. For DNS i was talking about the still existing domain where the old records from the DC have to be removed, i am not concerned about DNS on the server you will demote.Best regards Meinolf Weber Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights.