Forcefully Removing SharePoint 2010 Server Role from When Database no Longer Exists

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There are cases where a server believes it is still part of a farm but it cannot connect to the said farm especially in situations where there was an update or upgrade to the local machine binary. SharePoint requires that you re-run the Config Wizard to update the server and the notify the farm of the latest patches installed locally.

Instead of giving you the option to Disconnect or continue with the existing farm configuration the Wizard skips this step and assumes the old farm settings. Running with these settings obviously fails and there seems to be no way out from this. Fortunately if you are brave enough you can wade through the registry and remove references to the old database which will force the Configuration Wizard to give you the option to either create a New Farm or join and existing one.

The remove the registry entry simply rename or change the “dsn” property under hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0\Secure\ConfigDB as follows:

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