Sometime ago I was requested to intall Exchange 2010 on the domain for testing. At the time I did not know that much about Exchange 2010 and I thought I removed the server from the domain correctly. But I didn't. On the Exchange 2003 System Manager I can see the Exchange Administrative Group that was created by the Exchange 2010 install. I have tried right click and delete the group but it will not delete. Under the group the test server is listed and I cannot delete that either. I plan on deplying a production Exchange 2010 environment in the future but first I would like to remove the old test server. Any suggestions?

As far as I know, the only supported method to do that is to reinstall the server using Setup.com /Mode:RecoverServer, seeing that through until the install completes successfully, then running Setup.com /Mode:Uninstall and following that through until it completes successfully. Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

Hi, Can you try to remove the Exchange 2010 server from Add/Remove? If not, then please post the error here for further troubleshootings. Xiu

I am not sure what you mean by using Add/Remove. The physical server does not exsist anymore.

My answer at the top of this thread stands.Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

I am not sure what you mean by using Add/Remove. The physical server does not exsist anymore. Can you try to install Exchange Server with recover mode as Ed said? If not, then we have to remove the server container from ADSIedit.msc. But that is not recommend. Xiu

Ed, Do I need to install the CAS, Hub transport and MB roles or can I get away with only installing one of the components? Also, it only has to be the same server name, not same IP?

See the information about /m:RecoverServer (you will not add any roles manually) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997281.Martina Miskovic

This won't affect the current Exchange 2003 environment will it?

It should not.Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

I faced exactly the same issue. From what I understand here, Your exchange 2010 uninstallation wasnt successful. As mentioned in earlier answers, first you should try to proceed with uninstalling using the setup and unchecking the roles you had previously selected for installation. Most probably you would end up with some or the other error, either database or public folder or federated stuff related. My personal experience at this point was going ahead and removing the items from Active Directory manually using ADSIEdit. Not sure if this is supported solution, but in my case I did the digging before removing anything so as to make sure its related to Exchange 2010 and not the earlier version. Launch ADSIEdit.msc and navigate to CN=Configuration , CN=Services, CN=Microsoft Exchange, CN=, CN=Administrative Groups, CN=First Administrative Group, CN=Servers. There in you should be able to remove all the related objects as the database, or DAG ( if any) , first administrative group, etc. I think you will get the knack of it if you take some time digging in the objects using ADSI edit and it should be clear to you about the objects that come along with Exchange 2010 installation. You could also remove Federated email accounts, Autodiscovery stuff, etc. Once you are done with this, again repeat the uninstallation for Exchange using the setup, i.e. run the setup and uncheck all the roles. And the uninstallation should complete successfully. Warning: Be very careful with what you delete using ADSIedit ! The above solution worked wonders for me. Do remember you have to run setup:/prepareAD before you install the next time. $hAz@iB

My understanding is that removing the server using ADSI Edit is not supported. That's not to say that people don't do it. Do not remove any administrative groups from which you've moved mailboxes or else you will break their free-busy function. Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

I have read online about removing the server with ADSI edit. I am going to try the process that Ed suggested and only use the ADSI edit as a last resort.

I ran Setup.com /Mode:RecoverServer. Everything seemed to be installing but then it stopped. I looked at the event viewer and it logged this error: Exchange Server component Mailbox Role failed. Error: Error: The following error was generated when "$error.Clear(); disasterRecovery-ExsetdataAtom -AtomName MDB -DomainController $RoleDomainController" was run: "An error occurred with error code '2147950640' and message 'There is no such object on the server.'.". An error occurred with error code '2147950640' and message 'There is no such object on the server.'. Any ideas?

Look in the setup log and see if it gives you any clues.Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

The log tells me nothing. It has generic message of 'Setup is stopping now because of one or more critical errors'.

Nothing above that? Usually those errors are triggered by something else farther up in the log, though not too far up. I recognize that those logs are hard to read and sometimes not terribly useful. Ultimately if you can't get the server removed, you may want to choose the unsupported ADSIEdit route.Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

Yeah, there was something above it but I could make heads or tails of it. I am going to rebuild the server and start from scratch.

I am just going to try the ASSIEdit route. The RecoverServer Mode doesn't seem to be working for me.