I was trying to uninstall one of the member exchange server that resides in a domain controller. As per http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125110(EXCHG.65).aspx the following were Verified: 1. The admin permissions. 2. No mailboxes assigned to storage group on the server.(In the tree server has "First Storage Group" which in turn has "Mailbox store(serverName)" and "Public Folder Store (serverName)". Both "Mailbox Store" and "Public Folder Store" have red arrows and are disabled. 3. Recipient update service is run by a different server. 4. Site replication service is not configured. 5. It is not a brigdgehead server. 6. It is not a routing master. Also, I Went to AD Users and Computers. Clicked "Find" button-->Advanced Tab-->Field-->User-->select Exchange Home Server--> Condition is "Ends with"-->"Value:" is the name of the server eg. "serverName". Returns no result when search performed domain wise. Tried similar search for "Exchange Mailbox store" with "Ends with", "starts with" criteria. No result. The exchange services on the server were disabled for over 5 months and we didn't notice any issues. But when uninstalling Exchange 2003 from that member server, the other components uninstalled except for "Messaging and Collaboration Services" (in order to remove the other components automatically we had to enable the exchange services from services.msc). Automatic removal with installation CD results in error. The first one is when it is "Removing Active Directory objects for Exchange ActiveSync". It throws out error "Setup failed while installing sub-component Exchange ActiveSync with error code 0x80072030." Upon hitting cancel, it says "removing registry entries for Microsoft Exchange OMA Browse" and throws out "Setup failed while installing sub-component Exchange OMA Browse with error code 0x80072030." When cancel is clicked it takes to component messages box which has a red error in "Microsoft Exchange Messaging and Collaboration Services". Upon clicking that it says there is no such object on the server. Facility: LDAP Provider. Gone through http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833396 but does not seem to help. All mailboxes were migrated. There were other links through microsoft KB that I went to which talked about removing the mailboxes pointing to the server which I don't seem to find. I am using the original install CD. How can I get over through this "automatically" without manual intervention? Greatly appreciate any help!

Sometimes the only way is to remove manually. are you saying that http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833396 didnt help?

I had been to that link. It doesn't outline how to address those issues faced during automatic removal. Didn't want to go with manual removal since I wasn't sure what else would be left behind.

Well, its supported in 2003 and that KB pretty much covers it all.

I went with the manual removal. This was what I did: Disabled the exchange services that automatic removal could not remove. Most of them were removed (like pop, imap4, etc.) Manually removed registry entries for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange and EXIFS, ExIPC, MSExchangeAL, MSExchangeDSAccess, MSExchangeFBPublish, MSExchangeIS, MSExchangeMTA, MSExchangeMU, and MSExchangeSA since these were the only ones present. Removed and reinstalled IIS. There was no Metabase.xml in %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv. So I assumed uninstall process got rid of it. Renamed Exchsrvr folder. From system manager removed the exchange server. Went to ADSI. Went inside CN=Configuration, DC=Domain_Name,DC=com -->CN=Services-->CN=Microsoft Exchange-->CN=Your_Organization_Name-->CN=Administrative Groups-->CN=Your_Administrative_Group_Name_Or_Exchange5.5_Site_Name-->CN=Servers. The removed server wasn't listed there. Is this enough? The article also mentions to reinstall SMTP and NNTP on the server. Is it required? Thanks.

No, no reinstall required since you removing Exchange permantely.

Hi, You have removed exchange 2003 from your local server and the exchange organization. No additional steps required. Do not need to reinstall SMTP and NNTP. Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. Thanks Gen Lin-MSFT

Thanks for the confirmation guys!