Broken Exchange in AD Environment

Question

One of our testing exchange servers hadn't been used for awhile and when a tech was trying to get it working again (hub transport wouldn't start, SID errors in event log, etc.) he got frustrated and deleted the computer account. We then created a new VM and attempted to install Exchange 2013 on a server 2012 R2. It completed but said that it cannot contact IIS on the (older and now removed) exchange server to load the OAB.

Here is the exact message:

How can we properly remove the previous exchange information from our domain and install a totally fresh exchange instance?

Answer 1

You can clean up the exchange information using adsi edit.

Open ADSI Edit to here CN=Configuration,DC=DOMAIN,DC=LOCAL,CN=Servicesand delete

CN=Microsoft Exchange
CN=Microsoft Exchange Autodiscover

Browse to CN=Default naming context,DC=DOMAIN,DC=LOCAL and delete

CN=Microsoft Exchange Security Groups
CN=Microsoft Exchange Security Objects

Delete the install folder from C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server

Delete the IIS sites

Delete the following user accounts from active directory

DiscoverySearch Mailbox{GUID}
Exchange Online-ApplicationAccount
FederatedEmail.GUID
Migration.GUID
SystemMailbox{GUID}
HealthMailboxGUID

In the registry find HKLM\Software\Microsoft and delete ExchangeServer also find HKLM\CurrentControlSet\Services and delete MSExchange

You will also need to run the prepare ad command on install