Reinstallation of a Citrix Server: Best practice removing or uninstalling Presentation Server, should we use CHFARM?

Hey folks,

A while back i had a customer asking for the best practice approach for removing XenApp Presentation server, and i found myself torn. I have alot of great colleagues, friends and Guru’s in the community all talking different religions. So i started looking for a more ‘official’ guide and found a good article from Citrix they describe in detail the approach to removing or uninstalling under the following headlines:

• Uninstalling MetaFrame Presentation Server 3.0
• Uninstalling Citrix Presentation Server 4.0
• Uninstalling Citrix Presentation Server 4.5
• Manually Uninstalling Citrix Presentation Server 3.0, 4.0; and 4.5 When Add/Remove Programs and the Command Line Fail

Especially the last one is a good topic i have been in need of several times. you can read the entire article here:
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX746354

But, what about CHfarm?

Alot of people like the chfarm approach to the removal of a citrix server from a farm, and what i have been able to find it is a valid option and in the notes section of the following article i also found:

3. To remove a server from a farm you should either uninstall Citrix Presentation Server or run CHFARM.

So with that in mind it seems both options are a valid way to remove a server from a farm.

CHFARM has in the later version also been improved with command line options so that it can now be performed scripted doing installation or before a reinstallation.

You can find the entire article on chfarm usage here:
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX736659

/Rene Vester