How to completely uninstall Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook (GASMO)

This post will talk about how to completely uninstall Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook (hereafter referred to as GASMO).

You might want completely uninstall GASMO for several reasons.  If you're experiencing instability in Outlook, creating a new GASMO profile is typically the first step by re-running "Set up a Google Apps Sync user" and then setting the new profile as the default.  Should the new profile prove to be unstable, sometimes you need to completely remove GASMO.

Here is how I do remove GASMO completely.

Close Outlook
Uninstall GASMO via add/remove programs.
Delete the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google Apps Sync
Delete the folder C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Google\Google Apps Sync

uninstall SBS 2008 from domain

My broadstroke steps to uninstall SBS 2008 from my domain.

1. delete all offline address books in EMC
2. delete all public folders with these two PowerShell commands: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb201664(v=exchg.140).aspx
3. Disable and then purge all user mailboxes (you do not delete mailboxes as this also deletes the active directory accounts as well)
   a. You do not delete mailboxes, but rather you go to recipient configuration -> mailbox in EMC and highlight all mailboxes and choose "disable"
   b. You'll see all the mailboxes go to the disconnected mailboxes section
   c. Now, you run these two commands to purge the mailboxes in an elevated Exchange Shell:
   d. $users = Get-MailboxStatistics | where-object { $_.DisconnectDate -ne $null } | Select DisplayName,MailboxGuid
   e. $users | ForEach { Remove-Mailbox -Database "Mailbox Database" -StoreMailboxIdentity $_.MailboxGuid -confirm:$false }
   f. Credit for those two commands goes here: http://www.geekyprojects.com/microsoft-server-tutorials/how-to-purge-or-delete-a-disconnected-mailbox-in-exchange-2007/
4. Uninstall Exchange (required following several KBs with steps on deleting things like OAB, user mailboxes, public folders, send connectors, etc)
5. Transfer the 5 FSMO roles to a new domain controller with the global catalog role via these steps
6. Remove Active Directory Certificate Services
7. Demote the SBS server
8. Remove the SBS server from the domain (put in a workgroup)
9. Disable and/or remove WSUS from group policy via these steps

IMPORTANT NOTE - When I did a dcpromo to demote my SBS 2008, it somehow broke my DFS namespace even though the SBS 2008 server was *not* the host of this namespace.  I ended up having to create a new namespace after I had demoted the SBS server.  This is definitely something to check on future SBS uninstallations.

uninstalling GP Dynamics 2010

I had some trouble uninstalled a broken GP Dynamics 2010 install - so I thought I'd document what resources I used to do the uninstall:

http://www.kuntzconsulting.ca/index.php/blog/article/issues_with_gp2010_and_uninstalling

and

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2581260

SEP problems on SBS 2003

An associate recommended that I use Symantec Endpoint Protection on by SBS 2003 box as local file anti-virus.  I have done this successfully on a couple servers.  On one particular network, I have an Windows Server 2003 R2 box that hosts the Management Console, and I tried installing the SEP on the SBS box.  I first tried it using the unmanaged version of SEP on the SBS box.  The SBS box froze every time I rebooted it, and I had to cold boot it.  I figured it was that it was the unmanaged part that was the problem.  So today I tried to install it using the managed version.  Same problem.  And unfortunately, I didn't document how I uninstalled SEP.

The server freezes during a standard boot, so that doesn't work.  You can't uninstall it in safe mode (you can get to safe mode via F8 during the bootup process just like any regular Windows machine) becuase the installer service isn't running.

In essence, I went into safe mode, went into msconfig and went into the service tab and removed the Symantec options and rebooted.  Then you can go in regular mode and uninstall SEP.  I presume that will work - what I actually did was go into safe mode and go to msconfig and go into diagnostic startup and then enable all Microsoft services.  This sounds easy and logical, but took several hours of troubleshooting.

completely uninstall SBS Monitoring and Reporting

I uninstalled and reinstalled SBS Monitoring and Reporting to resolve a SQL issue with it today. And I referenced this blog post from someone else:

1. Control Panel -> Add Remove Program -> Windows Small Business Server 2003.
Set Server Tools to Maintenance. Set Monitoring to Uninstall and continue the setup process.
2. Control Panel -> Add Remove Program -> Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine (SBSMonitoring) -> Remove.
3. Rename the C:\program files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL$SBSMONITORING Folder.
4. Reboot the server.
5. Control Panel -> Add Remove Program -> Windows Small Business Server 2003.
Set Server Tools to Maintenance. Set Monitoring to Install and continue the setup process.
6. Reboot the server.
7. Start MSSQL$SBSMONITORING and SQLAgent$SBSMONITORING services.
8. In Server Management Console -> Monitoring and Reporting: run the "Set Up Monitoring Reports and Alerts wizard”

uninstall TrendMicro Messaging Suite Client without the password

I loathe the Trend Micro Messaging Suite. But I had an instance today where I had to uninstall the client version of the program from a laptop. The thing about this program is that it requires the Trend Micro administrator's password to uninstall it. This was put in place by someone else, so I didn't have it. I found this trick to having it not ask for the password:

Find HKLM\SOFTWARE\TrendMicro\PC-cillinNTCorp\CurrentVersion\Misc. and set "Allow Uninstall" = 1