In order to successfully uninstall Aurea Social, it is necessary to first validate the SharePoint environment.

Check Upgrade Status

Navigate to SharePoint Central Administration -> Upgrade and Migration -> Check Upgrade Status.

Confirm the last event for each server has succeeded. If there is a failure, consult the log file mentioned in the upgrade session details and address the problem. Once addressing the problem, you may need to run psconfig.

Check Product and Patch Installation Status

Navigate to SharePoint Central Administration -> Upgrade and Migration -> Check product and patch installation status.

Confirm that the install status is installed for each product/patch. Address any failures.

Check Database Status

Navigate to SharePoint Central Administration -> Upgrade and Migration -> Review Database Status.

Confirm that the status for each database is no action required. If the status reflects as other than ‘no action required’, consult Microsoft Support or Microsoft Technet to take the appropriate action to address the issue.

These steps outline the actions necessary to be taken directly before Uninstalling Aurea Social.

1. Copy Uninstall Scripts to Server and Update Scripts
1. Copy the uninstall script package to a SharePoint server in the farm (typically this is the Server hosting SharePoint Central Administration).
2. Ensure that the .zip file is not blocked. To do this, right click the .zip file, choose Properties, and then look for an ‘Unblock button. If you do not find the Unblock button, the files aren’t blocked. If the button exists, click it to unblock the file. Then unzip the files.
3. Once the files are unzipped copy all .wsp solution files from your original Aurea Social Install into the ‘Solutions Artifacts’ folder that was contained in the uninstall .zip folder.
4. Next, edit the uninstallng.ps1 script in an editor of your choice, such as Notepad.
5. Change the URL defined for $WebApp1 and $WebApp2 on line 5 and 6 to the web application URL’s where NewsGator is deployed.
6. Change the URL defined for $MySitesURL on line 7 to the location of your My Site Host.
7. This URL is defined in Central Administration -> Application Management -> Manage Service Applications -> User Profile Service Application -> Setup My Sites -> My Sites Host Location.
8. Save and close uninstallng.ps1.
9. Edit CleanActivityTypes.SQL, and change all instances of ‘Profile DB’ to the name of your SharePoint Profile DB. Save and close CleanActivityTypes.SQL.
2. Reboot Farm

Restart each server in the SharePoint farm, including the SQL server. A restart minimizes the chance of any .dlls being locked and that server resources are re-allocated.

3. Backup Farm

The farm should be fully backed up before starting the uninstall. The recommended procedure is to take full SQL backups of all SharePoint, including Sitrion/NewsGator, databases. Alternatively, if the farm consists of virtual machines, snapshots are a simple but effective backup mechanism.

4. Ensure Timer Service Functionality

Aurea Social relies on the SharePoint Timer Service to successfully retract solutions. If the timer service is non-functional on any SharePoint server on the farm, the upgrade could fail.

To verify timer service functionality, do the following:

1. Navigate to Central Administration -> Monitoring -> Review Job Definitions -> Job History.
2. In the upper right-hand corner, you can filter the View.
3. From the drop down menu, choose Server.
4. For each server in the farm, verify that timer jobs have been executing successfully on each SharePoint server in the farm. Each server typically executes several of these every minute.
5. Turn off Antivirus Software

You should turn off antivirus software on the server on which you are running Setup, and leave if off for the duration of the upgrade. You can turn it back on once the upgrade is complete.

6. Note on Uninstall Account

If the account that you are logged into the server and performing the uninstall with has a large profile, that large profile increases the time needed to perform the uninstall. Aurea Social recommends deleting any unneeded files from the profile.

A profile can get quite large if files, such as service packs, are saved to the desktop instead of a designated downloads folder on the file system or network share.

To check the profile size, do the following:

1. Log on to the server on which you want to perform the upgrade.
2. Right click on Computer or My Computer, then Advanced system settings.
3. In the User Profiles section click settings. All profiles, along with size, are listed.
4. Locate the profile you are logged in with to perform the upgrade. Get the profile down to 5-10 MB, if possible.

Typically you can find the profile on the file system at C:\users\%USERNAME% - move or delete unnecessary or large files.

These steps outline the actions necessary to be taken directly before upgrading Aurea Social.

Launch the Uninstall

Remote desktop to the Central Administration server that you copied the Aurea Social uninstall files to as part of the pre upgrade steps above.

Login with the account that will be performing the uninstall (typically the farm account). Right click and ‘run as administrator’ the SharePoint Management Shell.

Change directory to where you copied the uninstallng.ps1 script, then Type \uninstallng.ps1 followed by enter to execute the script.

Address Warnings and Errors

Once the uninstall is complete, examine the console window. Address any warnings or errors. Some warnings / errors can be successfully ignored after verification of the Post-upgrade steps below.

For example, you may see warning / errors about not being able to restart services. Often this is caused by the services taking longer than normal to restart, but nothing is really wrong or broken. You may need guidance from Aurea Social Support to address these errors.

These steps outline the actions necessary to be taken directly after performing an upgrade of Aurea Social.

Re Enable Antivirus Software

Restart any antivirus software disabled before performing the upgrade of Aurea Social.

Reboot Farm

Restart each server in the SharePoint server in the farm.

Verify Uninstall

Verify the following:

• Check that all NewsGator solutions are removed, including SharePoint.ajax. This is done in Central Administration -> System Settings -> Manage Farm Solutions.
• Verify that all NewsGator Farm level features are uninstalled: Central Administration -> System Settings -> Manage Farm Feature. All NewsGator features starts with “NewsGator.”
• Verify that all NewsGator web application level features are uninstalled: Navigate to Central Administration -> Application Management. For each web application select it and choose Manage Features in the ribbon. All NewsGator features starts with “NewsGator.”
• Verify that all NewsGator Site Collection Features are removed. Navigate to at least one site collection where you had previously used the NewsGator functionality. Navigate to Choose Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Manage Site Collection Features. All NewsGator features starts with “NewsGator” and should not be present.
• Verify that all NewsGator Site Features are removed. Navigate to at least one site where you had previously used the NewsGator functionality. Navigate to Choose Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Manage Site Features. All NewsGator features starts with “NewsGator” and should not be present.
• Check that all NewsGator timer jobs are removed in Central Administration -> Monitoring -> Review Job Definitions. All NewsGator jobs starts with “NewsGator” and should no longer be present.
• Check that no NewsGator Services are present or running in the farm. You may check this in Central Administration -> System Settings -> Manage Services on Server. For each server, check that no services that start with “NewsGator” are present/running.
• Verify that you see no errors on pages that used to contain NewsGator web parts. Typically these would be former community sites or the My Newsfeed page on the My Sites.
• Verify that former communities are still accessible and that you can access the files contained in their document libraries.
• Check that out of the box SharePoint social features are usable. For the Newsfeed, go to your my site host, edit the page, and add the ‘What’s New’ web part. For Tags and Notes, navigate to a document library which contains items, select an item, and click the Tags & Notes link in the ribbon. Verify that you can post oth a tag and note.
• Verify that custom branding is functional without errors related to social sites components.
• SharePoint Health check don’t complain about missing NewsGator components.
• Windows server logs are free of NewsGator errors for at least 48 hours post uninstall.