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Unable to remove Remote Desktop Services server role.

Digital_Skream
Digital_Skream asked
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Last Modified: 2018-02-06
Server 2012 R2, fully patched.
When removing the server role "Remote Desktop Services", everything goes smoothly.
Upon rebooting, however, the server reports that it is unable to make changes to Features, and changes are being rolled back.
Server will then reboot again, and when it comes back up, RDS is fully reinstalled.

Server is also a DC and Hyper-V host.  (Previous vendor installed everything on bare metal, rather than in VMs, and now I get to fix it!  yay!)

Any ideas?  Event logs are singularly unhelpful in tracking down the cause of this problem.
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Cliff Galiher
CERTIFIED EXPERT
Distinguished Expert 2018

Commented:
I wouldn't bother fixing it. Just start migrating to new machines, VMs, etc. Then torch the machine and install whatever single role It's final intended purpose is supposed to be. That much crap installed together is never going to be stable again without flattening it.
System Analyst
Commented:
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Digital_Skream

Author

Commented:
So, after removing the roles, the server reboots.
it starts to load windows, and then says that it is configuring features... gets to about 72%, and then says it can't configure features, rolling back changes, and then it reboots.
Once it comes back up, I login, and poof, all the RDS roles are still there.

Formatting and reinstalling is not an option at this point, so I need to fix this issue.
Tahir QureshiSystem Analyst

Commented:
could you please share your eventviewer log
Tahir QureshiSystem Analyst

Commented:
there may be some other feature require RDS. Log will tell what you have to do to uninstall
Digital_Skream

Author

Commented:
The powershell removal did the trick, whereas removing the features/roles via GUI wouldn't do it.

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