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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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  • 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, 2013 at 21:56
  • I've tried that already. See my other question, from where this all started. stackoverflow.com/questions/17792419/…
    – JustBeingHelpful
    Jul 22, 2013 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, 2013 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, 2013 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, 2013 at 0:05

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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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  • 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, 2014 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, 2015 at 20:06

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