Removing an Exchange Server 2003 Server from an Organization

Removing an Exchange Server 2003 Server Using the Microsoft Exchange Installation Wizard

The usual way to remove an Exchange Server 2003 server from an organization is with the Microsoft Exchange Installation Wizard. This is the preferred removal method because Setup is able to read and write information to Active Directory and to remove all references to the server. However, to use the Microsoft Exchange Installation Wizard, there are some prerequisites that must be met.

• You must move all mailboxes to another Exchange server in the organization or remove them from each user account.

• The server must not be a bridgehead server or routing group master. If it is, the role must first be transferred to another Exchange server in the routing group.

• The server must not be a part of any connection agreements.

• The server must not have any connectors installed and in use.

If you attempt to set the Microsoft Exchange component to Remove in the Microsoft Exchange Installation Wizard, and your server does not meet the prerequisites, Setup displays an error message advising you of the problem. Figure 1 shows an example of an error when there are user mailboxes on the server that you are trying to remove.

Figure 1. A Microsoft Exchange Installation Wizard error message

To complete the removal, you need to correct the situation, such as by moving user mailboxes to another Exchange server in the organization. A common pitfall is that the administrator account has a mailbox created for it automatically when Exchange Server 2003 is installed. So, even if you install and then immediately attempt to uninstall the mailbox, you will need to first delete it. Once you have done this, you can start the wizard again. It will run and complete in much the same way as when installing Exchange Server 2003.

Forcibly Removing Exchange Server 2003 from an Organization

Unfortunately, in the real world, things don’t always go as planned. It is possible that, for one reason or another, Active Directory will determine that you don’t meet the prerequisites, even when you are sure that you do. You might have a situation, for example, where you have many mailboxes on your Exchange Server 2003 server but you know you don’t need any of them and you don’t want to take the time to manually delete them.

In such situations, you have the option to forcibly remove an Exchange Server 2003 server from an organization by using the Exchange System Manager console. Before proceeding, stop all of the Exchange Server services. Right-click on the server you want to remove in the console, point to All Tasks, and then click Remove Server. The installation wizard will warn you that proceeding will result in a loss of mailbox, public folder, and configuration data, and that you should uninstall using Add Or Remove Programs instead.

If you click Yes, Exchange Server 2003 will ignore its built-in checks for protecting data and will remove itself from the server and from Active Directory, with the accompanying loss of data that entails. This is a last-resort tool—one you would use if you were unable to perform a removal with the Microsoft Exchange Installation Wizard.

To finish removing the Exchange Server 2003 server, there are a number of steps to be completed. First, you will have to disable all of the Microsoft Exchange Server services on the server (rather than just stopping them). Then there are several registry keys that need to be deleted. If you are not using the IIS components required by Exchange Server 2003 for anything else, remove those as well.

Once you have completed these tasks, reboot the server and delete the folder structure and contents for the Exchange Server installation. Finish cleaning up by reapplying service packs and patches, and if the Exchange Server 2003 server was installed in an Exchange Server 5.5 site, delete the object in Exchange 5.5 Administrator. You will walk through these steps in the practice at the end of this lesson. At this point, you can either reinstall Exchange Server 2003, if necessary, or reassign the server for some other purpose.

Practice: Removing Exchange Server 2003 from an Organization

Because you have not yet added mailboxes to your server or connected to other platforms, you should be able to remove your server using the Microsoft Exchange Installation Wizard. The only caveat is that during installation, Exchange Server 2003 creates an e-mail address for the account used to install the program (often the Administrator account). You will have to remove this address prior to running Setup. In the practice, you will use the installation wizard to remove an Exchange Server 2003 installation, and then you will forcibly remove the other Exchange Server 2003 installation.

Exercise 1: Remove Exchange Server 2003

Exercise 2: Forcibly Remove Exchange Server 2003 from an Organization