Remove Exchange 2003 Server

Sometimes it may be required to remove Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 from a computer or entire network. However, there are certain prerequisites that must be complied with before the removal process starts, otherwise it would be very difficult , if not impossible, to completely and cleanly remove Exchange Server 2003.

Firstly, if the Exchange Server being removed is in a production environment then all the roles held by the server should be moved to another server as back-up. In addition to that, the mailboxes for the mailbox-enabled users need to be disconnected by using Active Directory User and Computer Snap-in.

Then the Exchange Server 2003 setup program has to be run to remove all the installed components from the computer. This can be done by going to Control Panel-> Add/Remove Programs-> Microsoft Exchange-> Change/Remove.

If the automatic removal process as described above does not work, then the Exchange Server 2003 has to be removed manually. In order to do that, firstly all the Exchange 2003 services need to be stopped and disabled. Then Exchange Registry keys need to be removed from registry editor. Registry editor can be invoked by going to Start->Run-> 'regedit'.

These steps will completely remove Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 from the computer. Deletion from registry means all the registry components will also be deleted from the database.

After Microsoft Exchange 2003 has been completely removed, a health check should be performed to ensure that the removal process was clean, and further installation of a different version of Exchange Server (like 2007, for example) can be installed withot any technical issue. One problem commonly faced during the health check is that the First Administrative Group still remains even after the removal. This can be handled by unchecking this group during health check.