How can we remove Exchange 2007 roles without a DC available?

Question

How can we remove Exchange 2007 without contacting a DC?

We need to remove the roles because we want to re-utilize the server. Our domain structure has changed and no DC exists any longer for that domain.

I'm running on Windows Server 2008 R2.

Answer 1

If the domain no longer exists and you want to re-deploy the box into a new role then I would suggest that the simplest answer might be to wipe and re-install Windows.

This is probably the best way to ensure that not only is Exchange removed but that any other pre-requisites it requires or custom tuning made to the operating system over the years for Exchange performance will be removed too and won't clash with your database requirements.

Answer 2

From Manually Remove Exchange 2007

1. Run setup /m:uninstall
2. Stop and disable all the Exchange 2007 services
3. Use Registry Editor (Start->Run->Regedit) to remove these Exchange related registry keys:
   • HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange
   • HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchange* (all the keys starting with “MSExchange”)
   • HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Microsoft Exchange
4. Remove the entire Web Server role (don’t forget to reinstall afterwards as it’s a prerequisite for E2K7!)
5. Remove the Exchange 2007 server from Active Directory. I ended up deleting the entire “Microsoft Exchange” branch from ADSIEdit (Configuration Container > Services > Microsoft Exchange) as my Org only counts one server.
6. Use Windows Explorer to delete:
   • C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server
   • C:\ExchangeSetupLogs
7. Use Windows Installer CleanUp Utility to remove all the exchange related info from the installer database.