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ThaKidd KG5ORD
Asked: 2010-05-20 11:13:52 +0800 CST

Need to Remove Exchange 2003 Server That Crashed During Transition to 2010

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As the title stated, we were running an Exchange 2003 server that we knew was going down soon so we purchased a second server and installed Exchange 2010 into the AD. We managed to move all of the mailboxes off of 2003 and also managed to get the Offline Address Book setup on 2010. At this point the 2003 server bit the dust and will no longer boot. Therefore we were unable to properly uninstall Exchange and remove the last 2003 server so it still exists in AD. As far as the clients are concerned, everything is working properly.

However, when I run the Microsoft Exchange Profile Analyzer, I still see the old server and its Administrative Group. I am going to guess that since the old server is showing up in AD, I will not be able to raise Exchange or AD functionality (as the 2003 server was also the only AD DC) levels. I have forced the 2003 DC out of AD so that is no longer an issue.

Old Setup: Windows 2003 Server Enterprise & Exchange 2003 Standard
New Setup: Windows 2008 SR2 Server Enterprise & Exchange 2010 Standard

Two Questions:

  • How do you go about manually forcing the 2003 server and its administrative group out of AD?
  • When that is finished, where do you raise the Exchange mode (can't find this for the life of me)?
exchange-2003 exchange-migration exchange-2010

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Remove the exchange server from the First Administrative Group first.

    First if you haven't already promote the new exchange server as the master: go to Exchange System Manager > Administrative Groups > First Administrative Group > Routing Groups > First Routing Group > Members Right click your new server and click "set as master"

    To remove the old exchange server go to Exchange System Manager > Administrative Groups > First Administrative Group > Servers. Right click the old server go to All Tasks > Remove server

    if you get an error like this

        The Server "SERVERNAME" cannot be removed because:
-One or more users currently use a mailbox on this server. 
These users must be moved to a mailbox store on a different server 
or be mail disabled before uninstalling this server.
Facility: Exchange System Manager
ID no: c103f492
Exchange System Manager

    Then Open AD and do a search for all users who have Exchange Home Server attribute set to the dead Exchange Server. Remove Exchange mailbox association if you find any users using the old server.

    If you cannot see administrative or routing groups then: Right click your domain (exchange) container (THE HIGHEST LEVEL) go to properties check off the administrative views. "Display routing groups" and "Display administrative groups"

    Finally: Delete all the old DNS records for the old server as well as any DHCP records then simply delete the old server from AD this is assuming you were able to transfer all the Schema roles.

    Hope this helps.

    • 2

  2. You may also need to remove the old server from any public folder replica lists as well.

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