Best Practice to stop any running Nintex Workflows

[Jherschel7]

We want to archive a site collection (read only) with multiple Nintex Workflows running on it, and for reasons too long to explain, I can't lock the site collection as read only, so my plan is to decrease all permissions down to read only, and I'd like to stop any Workflows from continuing to run.  Should I de-activate the Nintex Workflow feature or go to every list and remove all the Nintex Workflows.  I did not see an timer job that I could disable.  Any advise is appreciated.

[SimonMuntz · Accepted solution]

Hi,
Deactivating the Nintex features will only stop the ability to create or edit Nintex workflows.
A user needs contribute permissions to run a workflow so if you set permissions to read only then a workflow cannot be started.
To be extra sure you can go to each list settings > Workflow settings > Remove, Block, or Restore a Workflow and set all workflows to "No new instances".

[mlauer]

If you want to end all running workflow instances, have a look at the script created by @vadim_tabakman:

http://www.vadimtabakman.com/powershell-cancelling-all-running-workflows.aspx

[Jherschel7]

Thanks, I will give it a try in our DEV/QA. I'm worried it might set the Last Modified Date to the day the script was run (which I don't want) and thanks to comments, I can turn emails off (which was another concern). Thanks!

[Jherschel7]

So, that sent out thousands of [Approval No Longer needed] emails even when I had error emails turned off. Is there any reason I SHOULDNT cancel workflows? if I set site to read only and remove all instances of workflows, they will just sit there in the site and database correct? thx
...or maybe I just change outgoing emails settings while I run the script to trap all emails.