my prod esxi 4.1 server password is lost, I am planning to join the esxi in AD domain to reset the password, so is there any risk if I join my prod esxi server to domain and once the root password is reset then remove the server from domain ?

[Himanshu_vmware]

my prod esxi 4.1 server password is lost, I am planning to join the esxi in AD domain to reset the password, so is there any risk if I join my prod esxi server to domain and once the root password is reset then remove the server from domain ?

[zXi_Gamer]

On a top level, if your prod server is currently in a part of HA/DRS or even added to a VC, then it would be unavailable.

I personally think it would not be wise to hamper with a production server. Given the fact that the password is lost, I doubt if you would be able to reset the root password when adding to a AD

Again, given the fact it is a production server, I can suggest, to bring up another server to migrate the VMS and once the production is up and running on the secondary host, you can use the ESXi - Reset the password for root

method to reset the password