[There's a reason that Yoda is the unofficial mascot of SBS. Size indeed matters not.] Migration Step Twenty Nine and a half: Uninstalling the Exchange 2003 - THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA
Tue, Nov 17 2009 22:13 bradley

Migration Step Twenty Nine and a half: Uninstalling the Exchange 2003

You must uninstall Exchange Server 2003 from the Source Server before you demote it. This removes all references in AD DS to Exchange Server on the Source Server. You must have your Windows Small Business Server 2003 media to remove Exchange Server 2003.

Important  

To remove Exchange Server 2003 from the Source Server, click Windows Small Business Server  2003 in Add or Remove Programs, and then click Remove. Follow the instructions to finish the procedure.

We're now at the step on step 29 where we are ready to remove the Exchange 2003.  We've already done a dry run of turning off the SBS 2003 box (but keep in mind with the 2k3 box still in the active directory of SBS 2008 it makes the rebooting of that box kinda dicey as it makes the AD in the SBS 2008 box not the happiest in the world.  The server still runs just fine, but it drags it's feet a bit booting up as it's looking for the turned off SBS 2003.

Stick Disk 2 in the cdrom, or stick the disk 2 iso in the HyperV cdrom drive.

click on Windows SBS 2003 (not the r2)

Click on change/remove, then click next.  In my case it warned me I had the system on a machine with more than two processors and click next.

Go down to the Exchange server section pull the arrow key down and click change the check mark to remove.

 

Click next.

Confirm that you'll remove Exchange

The removal begins

It will then want the location of of the cdrom.

 

(note, do-do brain me downloaded the disk two of the SBS 2003 service pack 1 media. I'm now remote to the box at home and in my Jammies and can't walk over to the dvd drive and give it a disk.  So I'm having to download the right disk 2 to remove the exchange.  So step we're going to stop here at step twenty-nine and a half where I give the box the RIGHT disk 2 will have to wait until tomorrow.  If for whatever reason you  have a disk with a non functional cdrom drive you can always download the ISO, or convert it to an ISO and feed it into a usb drive and then mount the media using magicdisc )

 

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# re: Migration Step Twenty Nine and a half: Uninstalling the Exchange 2003

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 2:32 AM by Paul Crosbie

I did this step via RDP into the clients server and realised that I didn't have the media so I just mapped it to a redirected drive on my local machine via the RDP connection.  It obviously doesn't need much from the disk as there was no lag and it worked a treat!

# re: Migration Step Twenty Nine and a half: Uninstalling the Exchange 2003

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 5:38 AM by Keith Templin

I got burned on this one!  While uninstalling exchange 2003 one error poped up about a dormant public folder.  Stupidly I chose to ignore it.  Well 3 months later I canot run Exchange BPA, new outlook useres auto point to the old server.

I spent 6 hours on the phone with MS support going thru ADSI edit line by line.

# re: Migration Step Twenty Nine and a half: Uninstalling the Exchange 2003

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 10:42 AM by IT Support Nottingham

Typical pain in the b*m migration. Can you manually remove it as per standard removal instructions?

Watch out for any third part integration.. AV Scanners etc. Make sure you uninstall these first.

# re: Migration Step Twenty Nine and a half: Uninstalling the Exchange 2003

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 5:54 PM by Jake

Not sure I understand why you MUST do this whilst its still a domain controller. I've removed exchange while its a member server and haven't had any troubles. Exchange 2003 is not normally a supported configuration on a domain controller, so I don't see the danger in doing this after the demotion. The plus side of doing it beforehand is that you can take your time if you need to move other services across afterward as the server will turn itself off once its no longer a domain controller. So if you have already demoted the server before reading this 'bible' not all is lost, just follow the instructions and you will be fine and remember for next time. :)