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Matty Brown
Asked: 2014-05-01 06:06:12 +0800 CST

Do I need to run ForestPrep and DomainPrep after uninstalling Exchange Server 2003?

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We've migrated our email to Office 365, so I now need to remove our one and only on-premises Exchange Server (2003 Standard).

The documentation that I've read suggests that I:

  1. Go to a command prompt (running as Administrator)
  2. With the Exchange Server 2003 installation CD in the drive, go to the D:\Setup\i386\ directory and run Update.exe /removeorg
  3. Run Setup.exe /forestprep
  4. Run Setup.exe /domainprep
  5. Done?

Why should I need to run setup.exe /forestprep and setup.exe /domainprep? There is no explanation of this in what I've read and when I look up what these do, it appears that they prepare for an installation of Exchange, not an uninstallation.

exchange-2003

2 Answers

    1. Running the "prep" stuff will never hurt your AD, though it does extend AD to include Exchange objects. (Extending AD is irreversible, you can't remove the extensions).
    2. Once the "prep" is done it doesn't need to be done again, so you can skip this while uninstalling.
    3. Use the Uninstall in Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel if you can, not the CD setup, if you can as your CD might be outdated (typical after installation of Service Packs and the like)
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  2. Best Answer

    I recommend you visit Technet documentation on uninstalling Exchange. Simply uninstalling an Exchange server is different from uninstalling the last Exchange server in your environment. If you need/want to uninstall Exchange and then remove it from AD, visit this article, which lays out the proper order in which to do it.

    Rerunning the forest and domain prep operations is recommended, with the intent of allowing Exchange to be reinstalled or installed at a later date. If you're certain you won't, then, strictly speaking, you don't need to prep the domain and forest again, but given the triviality of the operation (and the fact that your schema has already been extended to allow the Exchange install in the first place), I see no reason not to.

    Rerun the forest and domain prep to leave the environment in a proper, pristine state for the next guy or your future self, because it's a good idea, and there's no drawback to doing so.

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