Uninstall Nintex products

This topic describes how to uninstall Nintex Workflow and Nintex Forms completely. Follow these instructions for servers on which you do not intend to reinstall Nintex products.

If you plan to reinstall the Nintex platform

To facilitate an easy reinstall of Nintex products, perform the following tasks prior to uninstalling the Nintex platform.

  • Run the IISreset command on all servers in the farm to ensure that Nintex assemblies are not write-locked. Make sure you run this command after a failed installation of the installer package.
  • Retract and remove Nintex solutions from the farm, first for content web applications, and then for Central Administration. For retraction and removal instructions, refer to the following MSDN article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/aa543958(v=office.14).aspx.

Perform a complete uninstall

Completely uninstalling Nintex Workflow and Nintex forms involves removing Nintex solutions, databases, web.config entries, and external platform components, as well as SharePoint libraries and lists used to interact with Nintex products.

To uninstall Nintex features and solutions

  1. Disable Nintex features on all relevant sites and site collections in SharePoint.

    1. Nintex Workflow: Disable Nintex features on all sites using Nintex Workflow.

    2. Disable Nintex features on all site collections using Nintex products.

      Nintex features for site collections include external forms as well as Nintex Workflow.

  2. Nintex Forms - External forms: Disable external forms options and services.

    • On the Central Administration Home page, click Nintex Administration, click External forms settings, and then click Disable for Enable external forms.

    • On the Central Administration Home page, click Nintex Administration, click Remote mobile access, and then click Disabled for Enable External Mobile Access.

  3. Deactivate Nintex features for all relevant web applications.

    • Nintex Workflow: On the Central Administration Home page, click Nintex Administration, click Web Application activation under Licensing and setup, select the check box for All content web applications, and then click Deactivate.

    • Nintex Forms: On the Central Administration Home page, click Application Management, click Manage web applications under Web applications, and then for each web application on which you want to deactivate the product, select the web application, click Managed Features, and then click Deactivate for Nintex Forms.

      Note: When Nintex Forms is deactivated, the web.config file for the web application is updated to remove Nintex.Forms references.

  4. Stop all Nintex services by disabling related features as follows.

    • Disable external settings for workflow:
      1. On the Central Administration Home page, click Nintex Administration and then click External settings for Workflow under Licensing and setup.
      2. Disable all functionality on this page.
    • Disable external forms: 
      1. On the Central Administration Home page, click Nintex Administration and then click External forms settings under Forms environment.
      2. Click Disable for Enable external forms.

  5. Retract and remove Nintex solutions in the following sequence.

    nintexworkflow2016enterprisefeatures.wsp

    nintexworkflow2016.wsp

    nintexworkflow2016core.wsp

    nintexforms2016core.wsp

    nintexforms2016.wsp

    nintexexternalconnection.wsp

    nintexcommon.wsp

    Steps to retract and remove a solution: 

    1. On the Central Administration Home page, click System Settings and then click Manage farm solutions.

    2. On the Solution Management page, click the name of the solution.

    3. On the Solution Properties page, click Retract Solution. The Solution Management page is redisplayed.

    4. Click the name of the solution again.

    5. On the Solution Properties page, click Remove Solution. The Solution Management page is redisplayed.

  6. Nintex Forms: Delete the following content types and related tasks from all SharePoint lists and sites.

    • Nintex Workflow Multi Outcome Task (use Nintex Forms)

    • Nintex Workflow Task (use Nintex Forms)

  7. RemoveNintex External Services from all servers. Run the following commands using command prompt on all the servers in the farm:
    • sc delete "Nintex Connector Workflow Queue Service"
    • sc delete "Nintex Workflow Start Service"

To remove Nintex databases

  • Open Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and delete databases associated with Nintex Workflow and Nintex Forms.

  • Nintex Forms: Remove the settings object from the SharePoint database: In SharePoint 2016 Management Shell, at the command prompt, type the following.

    Caution: This procedure removes the Nintex Forms database, license, and other items from the SharePoint farm. If you plan to reinstall Nintex Forms in the future, we recommend skipping this procedure as removal of these items may cause issues in the installer. The remedy for this installation issue is to run the Install-NFservice PowerShell script using SharePoint 2016 Management Shell.

    $farm = Get-spfarm

    $farm.RemoveObsoleteClass("4DB6F71E-05FF-4383-B16E-ABC5A57057C5")

To remove Nintex web.config entries

  1. On the server’s file system, navigate to the folder hosting the web application.

    Default path: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\virtualdirectories\80

  2. Open web.config with a text editor.

  3. Find and delete any of the following references.

    Nintex.Workflow

  4. In SharePoint 2016 Management Shell, use the following commands to remove the farm properties added by Nintex Workflow.

    $farm = get-spfarm

    $farm.properties.remove(“NintexWorkflowServer2016License”)

    $farm.properties.remove(“NW2007ConfigurationDatabase”)

    $farm.update()

    Note: The "NW2007ConfigurationDatabase" reference is correct.

To remove SharePoint libraries, lists, and content types

  1. Nintex Workflow: Delete the following libraries, lists, and (optionally) content types.

    Libraries and lists:

    • /NintexWorkflows

    • /Lists/NintexWorkflowHistory

    • /Workflows/NintexWorkflow

    Content types: 

    • Nintex Biztalk Task

    • Nintex Workflow Multi Outcome Task

    • Nintex Workflow Multi Outcome Task using InfoPath

    • Nintex Workflow Task

    • Nintex Workflow Task using InfoPath

    • Workflow

    • Workflow Snippet

    • Workflow Template

  2. Nintex Forms: Delete the following content types and related tasks from all SharePoint lists and sites.

    • Nintex Workflow Multi Outcome Task (use Nintex Forms)

    • Nintex Workflow Task (use Nintex Forms)