Home / server / Questions / 1047570
Accepted
TSG
Asked: 2020-12-26 20:51:05 +0800 CST

Need to uninstall crashed Exchange 2013 server before installing new Exchange 2019

  • 772

We have an old server that has suffered numerous hardware and software problems over the years. We want to simply get rid of the old Exchange 2013 server and start fresh with a new Windows 2019 + Exchange 2019 installation.

As a precaution I tried to uninstall Exchange 2013 from the old server but the box is too messed up. Uninstall fails.

What's the best approach? Do I need to go into ADSI edit and start cleaning up AD for the old server? Or just remove the old server from the domain and create a new Exchange 2019 server? I've read mixed advice about the need to remove the software, risk of cleaning up AD which may prevent new server from installing, etc. See this detailed walk through

(I have exported mail at the client level - so there is nothing I need to save).

exchange-2019 adsi exchange-2013

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Use ADSIEdit (or Active Directory Sites and Services, it's a bit simpler, just enable the "Show Services Node" option) and remove the Exchange main container, which is Services -> Microsoft Exchange; also delete Microsoft Exchange Autodiscover in the same place.

    Using Active Directory Users and Computers, delete the Microsoft Exchange System Objects OU and the Microsoft Exchange Security Groups OU. Also delete the computer account for the failed Exchange server(s).

    For additional cleanup, set all msExch* attributes for all your users and groups to null; clean also ProxyAddresses, MailNickName and Mail. You can use AD PowerShell to bulk cleanup all of this.

    After cleaning up everything, you'll be able to start fresh by running setup /PrepareAD from the Exchange install media and then by installing your first new Exchange server.

    • 1

  2. The supported method is to reinstall the old Exchange 2013 server using the "Setup.exe /Mode:RecoverServer" command first and then remove it via Add/Remove Programs. Since the Exchange settings are stored in the active directory,you can reinstall it on a new hardware with the same server name. Here is the document for your reference: Recover Exchange servers

    Using ADSIEdit may be more efficient but it is not officially supported.

    • 0