How to Remove a Managed Computer Role

Applies To: Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 SP1

When you add a Windows Server-based virtual machine host or library server to Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), VMM installs an agent on that computer. A single computer can serve as both a host and a library server. However, VMM installs only one agent; therefore, a managed computer can have multiple roles.

If you remove all roles from a managed computer, VMM uninstalls the agent from the computer. VMM removes the agent only; it does not remove the virtualization software from the host. You can still use the virtualization software to run virtual machines on a host that you have removed from VMM.

When you add a VMware VirtualCenter server to VMM, VMM does not install an agent but does assign it a VMware VirtualCenter Server role.

When you use VMM to convert a physical computer to a virtual machine (a P2V conversion), VMM temporarily installs a special-purpose VMM P2V agent on the source computer to gather information and then removes it before the conversion begins. These appear temporarily as managed computers in the Managed Computers results pane, with the SourceMachine role.

You can remove a role from a managed computer in the following ways:

• Use the Remove action in the Managed Computers node of Administration view to remove a role from a managed computer, which also removes the host, library, or VMware VirtualCenter Server from VMM.

• Remove a host in Hosts view, remove a library server in Library view, or remove a VMware VirtualCenter Server role in the Virtualization Managers node of Administration view. These actions also remove the related role from the managed computer. For more information about removing a host, see How to Remove a Host (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=121827). For more information about removing a library server, see How to Remove a Library Server. For more information about removing a VMware VirtualCenter Server, see How to Remove a Virtualization Manager from VMM (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=163058).

To remove a managed computer role

1. In the VMM Administrator Console, Administration view, click Managed Computers.

2. In the results pane, select a computer for which you want to remove a managed computer role, and then, in the Actions pane, click Remove.

3. In the Remove Agent dialog box, do the following:

   1. Select the role or roles that you want to remove.

      Note

      The dialog box displays only the roles that the agent is performing on the selected computer. By default, the All Roles check box is selected.

   2. Type the credentials of a domain account with administrator privileges on the selected managed computer, and then click OK.

      Note

      The credentials cannot be for the same domain account that is used as the VMM service account. For more information, see Hardening Virtual Machine Hosts Managed by VMM (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=145057).

See Also

Concepts

How to Reassociate a Host with a VMM Server
How to Update a VMM Agent on a Managed Computer