How to remove decommissioned Exchange 2013 servers?

Question

Hello

First my initial setup:

• Hybrid with all mailboxes in the cloud
• 2 x Exchange 2013 servers just to relay email from internal apps to O365

Change:

• With Ex2013 EOL, I added 2 x Exchange 2019 servers to the Org
• Configured internal apps to relay thru these new servers fine
• Using the console to create/manage mailbox settings for AD Sync to send to O365
• No mailboxes on-prem

3 months ago I shutdown the 2 x Exchange 2013 servers (scream test passed), no complains, all services running fine via the new 2 x Exchange 2019 servers.

Last month we deleted the 2 x Exchange 2013 server VMs... not sure if this was a good idea as I now noticed that these servers still show on the EAC.

1. Is there a way to do a clean removal from the Org (and from the console)?
2. The Hybrid setup was done via one of these servers (now deleted and offline for 3 months) will this be affected? I don't think so since all is working with the server down but not sure if any references are being made back to the on-prem Org?

Thanks! M

Answer 1

Hi @ SenhorDolas,

Last month we deleted the 2 x Exchange 2013 server VMs

Most settings for computers running Exchange 2013 are stored in Active Directory . Simply deleting a VM cannot uninstall Exchange Server.

Properly and safely uninstalling a deactivated Exchange server in your environment requires either unattended installation mode or running Setup.exe from the Setup file location.

For detailed steps, please refer to this document：Decommissioning Exchange Server 2013 - Microsoft Community Hub

 

Because the Exchange Server has now been removed, I recommended that you recover the lost server and then perform an uninstallation。

Please refer to this document on how to restore the Exchange server:

Recover an Exchange Server: Exchange 2013 Help | Microsoft Learn

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