To clean up server metadata by using Active Directory Users and Computers
or
To clean up server metadata by using Active Directory Sites and Services
or do I follow both steps ?
DrDave242
Clean it up using AD Users and Computers first. Once that's done, launch AD Sites and Services. The deleted server will probably still be listed there, but it'll be just an empty container - there won't be an NTDS Settings object inside it. Delete the server from there as well.
You may also need to delete DNS records referring to the server after that. In my experience, the metadata cleanup sometimes removes these records but not always, and I'm not sure why it's inconsistent.