How to unjoin Windows workstation from Active Directory safely?

"Log on as a local administrator onto the machine and change the network settings so that it will no longer be part of the domain. Change it to a workgroup instead.
On XP open up the network connections. Click the ""Advanced"" menu and select ""Network Identification"". You'll see that it is part of a domain. Click ""Change"" and set to a local workgroup name instead. The windows default is the workgroup name ""WORKGROUP"".

If you don't have admin rights, there are several linux based boot cd's that allow you to reset the administrator account on the local PC to a blank one."

If you can get a hold of ERD Commander, or some other password cracker, you can boot into that environment, change the password of the Administrator account, log onto the local machine from the Admin account and then checnge the workgroup to something else other than the default workgroup that Windows enables by default. As detailed previously, there may be some permissions that may still stay in affect. This is because it is easier to re-install and have full control. However, this would be the easiest way to do what it is that you are attempting.