Getting rid of first exchange server in the org EX2K. Have two mailboxes left - each cannot be purged and they had another mailbox that is associated with their account already moved to new EX2K3 server. Cannot purge and have no idea how to remove. A third mailbox has no account associated, please advise, thanks!

Where are you seeing these? In the Mailboxes object of Exchange System Manager? If so, try right-clicking Mailboxes and choosing Run Cleanup Agent from the menu. This should then allow you to purge the mailboxes.

They are in the system manager. Cleanup agent wont let me purge after I run it. The two mailboxes say there is an account associated with it but the problem is that the accounts already have mailboxes on the new server. Have no idea how to remove these orphaned objects and I cant uninstall the server until all mailboxes are gone, thanks,

I'd be inclined to try removing the mailbox from the account (the mailbox on the new server), obviously making sure you have a backup, etc, of that mailbox (the mailbox should stay on the store for 30 days by default as you know, assuming you've got deleted mailbox retention set on that new server). Then you should be in a position to remove the Exchange attributes from that account via the Exchange Tasks context menu when right-clicking the account. After that, I think you should be able to run the cleanup agent and purge the mailboxes (then you'll need to re-attach the other mailbox back to the account). Of course, that's the theory from my end - you may want to raise a PSS call and have them guide you through this.

Well, I think if you don't have any mailbox on this server you dont even need to purge anything. The message you are getting means that there is one or more users who still have mailbox pointed to this server. It is possible that you dont see that in the ESM because may the mailbox is not initialized. Deleted mailboxes waiting for be purged does not prevent you from removing the server. It checks this from whats called a HOMEMDBBL attribute on the databases present on the server.

But the original poster says they do see mailboxes in the Mailboxes object in ESM. It's my understanding that they are only seen here once they've been logged into or a mail has been sent to them, so they are effectively initialized, no?

Neil Hobson wrote: But the original poster says they do see mailboxes in the Mailboxes object in ESM. It's my understanding that they are only seen here once they've been logged into or a mail has been sent to them, so they are effectively initialized, no? Thanks, correct, I was able to purge it once I set deleted mailbox retention to 0 , however I still have one mailbox on there other then the system mailboxes I cant get rid of, it does not give me the option to reconnect or purge, any thoughts how to remove it? Thanks,