I am currently running Exchange 2010 and I am off of Exchange 2003 and ready to remove it. When I tried to remove it using Add/Remove Programs, it eventually failed with the error, "A problem has been encountered in the Microsoft Exchange Messaging and Collaboration Services, Setup component canceling setup..." After it rebooted, Exchange was no longer listed under Add/Remove Programs. Apparently, it only partially got removed. So, I proceeded to follow article KB833396, "How to remove Exchange Server 2003 from your computer". When I got to the step where is says to "Remove the Exchange Server 2003 server from Active Directory", I was no longer able to use System Manager with all of the manual removals of registry keys it had me do in the article. It does mention that if you cannot run System Manager to use ADSI edit. But they do not suggest using the ADSI edit unless you plan on reinstalling the Exchange 2003 server. I read another article that you can use the SETUP /REMOVEORG switch, but I've read some articles that this broke their Exchange 2010 environment after they did this. What advise would you suggest to properly remove Exchange 2003 at this point? Thanks!

Before removing the software, I would suggest that you shut it down for few days and observe that you really do not need anything off of it. When you're 100% sure, please see this documentation: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833396.

I have had it shutdown, so I am 100% sure... In fact, when the Add/Remove procedure failed, I tried the manual procedure discussed in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833396. But, as I mentioned, when you get to the part of removing the Exchange Server 2003 server from Active Directory using System Manager, it will not work as it had you do a bunch of removals in the previous steps... So, it mentions using ADSI edit to remove the server under: Configuration Container CN=Configuration, DC=<var>Domain_Name</var>,DC=com CN=Services CN=Microsoft Exchange CN=<var>Your_Organization_Name</var> CN=Administrative Groups CN=<var>Your_Administrative_Group_Name_Or_Exchange5.5_Site_Name</var> CN=Servers However, it does not recommend this unless you are planning on reinstalling the server which I am not. I also read that you can use the SETUP /REMOVEORG switch, but I don't want that to affect my Exchange 2010 installation.

You can go ahead and delete the Server object from the Server container in ADSI Edit since you have already followed the steps from mentioned in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833396. However, do not use the setup /removeorg option. It will remove exchange completely from your Active Directory. Check this article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/830185