Removing Mail Server from Server Exch2003

[jny04]

Hi there, I have been playing around in a test enviroment, I created 2 Mail Servers under the Server Folder ; X001, and the other X002.
However I want to now delete the first one i created, and make x002 the primary mail storage.

However there appears to be complexities when trying to remove the initial mail server when installing exchang2k3.

PLEASE HELP!!!

 

[Marcs41]

If it is a test environment, would you not just re-install the lot.
In a test environment, tests will mess up thing far beyond 'normal' use, so any tests after such 'messing' are highly untrustworthy.

Marc
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[jny04]

Hi thanks for that, I did do a complete reinstall
however - after installing ....the mail server appeared, as well as the newly installed mailserver!!!!
I think it must have binded into the AD forest when initially setting up exchange in the domain....

Please help???

 

[Marcs41]

Now how can that be?

I did mean a re-install of Windows Server, not just Exchange!

Marc
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[jny04]

Hi, I did both!!.....
I dont want to have to install another PDC as I have DNS/DHCP on this...

I just want to be able to install exchange with 1 mail server installed,

 

[Marcs41]

Well... like I mentioned before, you created a 'mess', which is ok in a test environment, that is what it is there for, but you should be prepared to start fresh for other tests, sorry.
Everything gets too embedded, so whatever you do will leave a trace, which can influence the next test.

Marc
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[ntinlin]

Search the MS knowledge base for details on removing the first exchange server.

There is a command line switch for the XC2003 install that will remove previous entries in AD but I can't remember what it is.

You should also be able to see the XC structure under AD sites and services if you turn the services view on. Basically you can just delete the XC tree and then reinstall XC.

That is what I had to do in our production environment. Somebody way back had loaded the ADC and got XC5.5 site info. into AD. We wanted to start clean with 2003 so I had to wipe the old entries. Took me ages to work out.

Neill