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Decommissioning Windows Devices

This short reference covers three common maintenance tasks for Windows endpoints: 1. Disabling BitLocker
2. Removing a Wazuh Agent
3. Uninstalling Licensed Software (e.g., Microsoft Office)

All procedures assume you have local administrator rights on the target machine.

1. Disable BitLocker

  1. Open the Start Menu
  2. Search for “BitLocker.”
  3. Wait for search results to populate.
  4. Click the “Manage BitLocker” result.
  5. On BitLocker Drive Encryption, click Turn off BitLocker.
  6. Confirm by clicking Turn off BitLocker in the resulting dialog.
  7. A notification will appear saying BitLocker is decrypting the drive.
  8. Double‑click the notification to open the progress window.
  9. Wait until the decryption process completes, then close the progress window.

Tip: Decryption may take a long time on large drives. Monitor the percentage in the progress window.

2. Remove Agent from Wazuh Server

The Wazuh agent runs inside a Docker container managed by Portainer.
Follow these steps to delete the agent configuration.

  1. Open a web browser and navigate to:
    https://10.0.1.10:9443
  2. Log in with:
Credential Value
Username admin
Password I love driving 1501 R@Bots^
  1. In the Portainer UI, click Live Connect under the Environments tab.
  2. Select Containers → locate Single-node-wazuh.manager1 → click Console.
  3. In the console, run:
/var/ossec/bin/manage_agents
  • This will launch the Wazuh Agent Management utility.
  • Follow the interactive prompts to delete the agent from the Wazuh server.

Note: Ensure that the agent you remove is the one installed on the current machine. The utility will list all connected agents.

3. Uninstall Licensed Software

Often, you’ll need to remove legacy or unused software, such as Microsoft Office, before re‑image or re‑license a device.

Uninstalling Microsoft Office

  1. Press Win + R, type appwiz.cpl, and press Enter (or search Apps & features).
  2. Find Microsoft Office (any version).
  3. Click Uninstall and follow the on‑screen wizard.
  4. After removal, restart the computer.

Prepared by: IT Operations Team
Last Updated: 2025‑10‑01