Remove the Last Legacy Exchange Server from an Exchange 2010 Organization

 

Applies to: Exchange Server 2010 SP3, Exchange Server 2010 SP2

You can remove the last computer running Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 or Exchange Server 2003 from an organization that also has Exchange Server 2010 servers. First, you prepare your Exchange organization for removal of the last Exchange 2007 or Exchange 2003 server. Next, you remove the last Exchange 2007 or Exchange 2003 server. To successfully remove the Exchange 2007 or Exchange 2003 server from your organization, you must complete both steps.

Looking for other management tasks related to installing Exchange 2010? Check out Managing Deployment of Exchange 2010.

Remove the last Exchange 2003 server

Removal of the last Exchange 2003 server requires that you satisfy some prerequisites and then complete a two-step process.

Prerequisites for removing the last Exchange 2003 server

• You installed one or more Exchange 2010 servers in the organization.

• If you're removing the last Exchange 2003 server, confirm that you don't plan to use any of the Exchange 2003 features that have been removed in Exchange 2010. The following are some of the features that aren't supported in Exchange 2010:

  • Novell GroupWise connector

  • Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP)

  • Routing groups

  • Lotus Notes connector

For a complete list of the features discontinued in Exchange 2010, see Discontinued Features.

Step 1: Prepare the Exchange 2003 organization to remove legacy Exchange servers

To perform the following procedure, the account you use must be delegated membership in the Exchange Full Administrator role on Exchange 2003 servers.

1. Move all mailboxes to an Exchange 2010 server in the organization. For more information, see Create a Local Move Request.

2. Move all content from the public folder database on the legacy Exchange 2003 server to a public folder database on an Exchange 2010 server in the organization. For detailed steps, see Move Public Folder Content from One Public Folder Database to Another Public Folder Database.

3. On Exchange 2003 servers, for each offline address book (OAB), move the generation process to an Exchange 2010 server. For detailed steps, see Move the Offline Address Book Generation Process to Another Server.

4. To remove the public folder mailbox and stores on the Exchange 2003 server, see How to Dismount and Delete the Mailbox and Public Folder Stores.

5. Verify that Internet mail flow is configured to route through your Exchange 2010 transport servers. For more information, see the following topics:

   • Configure Internet Mail Flow Directly Through a Hub Transport Server

   • Configure Internet Mail Flow Through a Subscribed Edge Transport Server

6. To verify that all inbound protocol services (Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, Microsoft Office Outlook Web App, Outlook Anywhere, POP3, IMAP4, Autodiscover service, and any other Exchange Web service) are configured for Exchange 2010, see Managing Client Access Servers.

7. Delete the routing group connectors that connect the Exchange 2003 routing groups. You can do this from Exchange 2003 System Manager, or you can use the Remove-RoutingGroupConnector cmdlet in the Exchange Management Shell.

8. If you have Exchange 2003 recipient policies that are only Mailbox Manager policies and don't define e-mail addresses (they don't have an E-mail Addresses (Policy) tab), perform the following steps to delete the policies:

   1. In Exchange System Manager, expand Recipients, and then select Recipient Policies.

   2. To verify that a policy is only a Mailbox Manager policy, right-click the policy, and then select Properties. The Properties page must not have an E-Mail Addresses (Policy) tab.

   3. To delete the policy, right-click the policy, and then select Delete. Click OK, and then click Yes.

9. If you have Exchange 2003 policies that are both E-mail Addresses and Mailbox Manager policies (they have both the Mailbox Manager Settings (Policy) tab and the E-mail Addresses (Policy) tab), perform the following steps to remove the mailbox manager portion of the policy:

   1. In Exchange System Manager, expand Recipients, and then select Recipient Policies.

   2. Right-click the policy, and then select Change property pages.

   3. Clear the Mailbox Manager Settings check box, and then click OK.

   Note

   Don't delete any e-mail address recipient policies that have e-mail addresses that you still want defined in your organization. Exchange 2010 will use those policies when provisioning new recipients.

Step 2: Remove the last Exchange 2003 server from an Exchange 2010 organization

To perform the following procedure, the account you use must be delegated membership in the Exchange Full Administrator role on Exchange 2003 servers.

1. Perform the following steps to delete the domain Recipient Update Service:

   1. In Exchange 2003 System Manager, expand Recipients, and then select Recipient Update Service.

   2. Right-click each domain Recipient Update Service, and then select Delete.

   3. Click Yes.

2. You won't be able to delete the Enterprise Recipient Update Service by using Exchange 2003 System Manager. Instead, perform the following steps to delete the Recipient Update Service by using Active Directory Service Interfaces Editor (ADSI Edit or AdsiEdit.msc). AdsiEdit.msc is included on the Windows Server 2003 CD in Support\Tools. For more information about ADSI Edit, see ADSI Edit (adsiedit.msc).

   1. In ADSI Edit, navigate to Configuration > CN=Configuration,CN=<domain> > CN=Services > CN=Microsoft Exchange > CN=<Exchange organization name> > CN=Address Lists Container > CN=Recipient Update Services.

   2. In the result pane, right-click Recipient Update Service (Enterprise Configuration), click Delete, and then click Yes to confirm the deletion.

3. Uninstall Exchange 2003 by using Add or Remove Programs from Control Panel. For more information, see How to Uninstall Exchange Server 2003.

   Warning

   Before you remove any Exchange 2003 administrative groups that contained mailboxes, verify that the public folder hierarchy has been moved to another administrative group. Also, verify that the Free/Busy public folder has replicated to the servers in other administrative groups.
   The general process to create public folder replicas on servers in other administrative groups is to update the replica list for each public folder to specify the destination server. After you allow sufficient time for the data to be replicated to the destination server, verify that the public folder database is empty. To do this, use the Exchange System Manager Public Folder Instances node or use the Get-PublicFolderStatistics cmdlet. If the results are blank, the public folder database is empty. When you remove the public folder database, you may be prompted to select another public folder database to act as the site folder for administrative groups and OABs. You may also be prompted to select another public folder database to act as the default public folder database for some messaging databases. For these prompts, the site folder server represents the public folder database responsible for making sure that administrative group and OAB site folders exist. The site folder server may be any public folder database server in the organization. The site folder server doesn't delete site folders for missing administrative groups. However, the site folder server does remove site folders for missing OABs.

4. After the last Exchange 2003 server has been removed from the Exchange 2010 organization, you can also remove the legacy Exchange Domain Servers and Exchange Enterprise Servers security groups. For more information, see Delete a group.

   Warning

   Before you delete either of these security groups, verify that each group is empty and isn't being used for any other purpose or process. If one or both of these groups has members, but if all members are shown as security identifiers (SIDs), the groups can be safely removed. If at least one group has members, and if the members are resolved to computer names, you should verify that the computers aren't functioning Exchange servers before you delete the groups.

Remove the last Exchange 2007 server

Removal of the last Exchange 2007 server requires that you satisfy some prerequisites and then complete a two-step process.

Prerequisites for removing the last Exchange 2007 server

• You installed one or more Exchange 2010 servers in the organization.

• If you're removing the last Exchange 2007 server, confirm that you don't plan to use any of the Exchange 2007 features that have been removed in Exchange 2010. The following are some of the features that aren't supported in Exchange 2010:

  • Storage groups

  • DSProxy

  • Cluster continuous replication

  • Single copy cluster

For a complete list of the Exchange 2007 features discontinued in Exchange 2010, see Discontinued Features.

Step 1: Prepare the Exchange 2007 organization to remove legacy Exchange servers

To perform the following procedure, the account you use must be delegated membership in the Exchange Organization Administrator role on Exchange 2007 servers.

1. Move all mailboxes to an Exchange 2010 server in the organization. For more information, see Create a Local Move Request.

2. Move all content from the public folder database on the legacy Exchange 2007 server to a public folder database on an Exchange 2010 server in the organization. For detailed steps, see Move Public Folder Content from One Public Folder Database to Another Public Folder Database.

3. On Exchange 2007 servers, for each offline address book (OAB), move the generation process to an Exchange 2010 server. For detailed steps, see Move the Offline Address Book Generation Process to Another Server.

4. To remove the public folder mailbox and stores on the Exchange 2007 server, see the following topics:

   • How to Remove a Public Folder Database

   • How to Remove a Mailbox Database

5. Verify that Internet mail flow is configured to route through your Exchange 2010 transport servers. For more information, see the following topics:

   • Configure Internet Mail Flow Directly Through a Hub Transport Server

   • Configure Internet Mail Flow Through a Subscribed Edge Transport Server

6. To verify that all inbound protocol services (Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, Microsoft Office Outlook Web App, Outlook Anywhere, POP3, IMAP4, Autodiscover service, and any other Exchange Web service) are configured for Exchange 2010, see Managing Client Access Servers.

Step 2: Remove the last Exchange 2007 server from an Exchange 2010 organization

Uninstall Exchange 2007 by using Add or Remove Programs from Control Panel. For more information, see the following topics:

• How to Completely Remove Exchange 2007 from a Server

• How to Remove an Exchange 2007 Organization

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