SMUCUG

One thing that always comes up as a consultant is the decommision process for old Exchange 2003 & 2007 servers. There is information out there on how to to it, but having done it hundreds of times, I can tell you that a simple list that includes “don’t forget to  ______” is nice to have. If you need more depth, screen shots and the like, Jaap Wesselius has a two part article over at Simple-Talk – part1 & part2, and Paul Cunningham has a whole eBook for sale that is dedicated to the topic.

For me, this checklist works great! If there are errors that you have found that aren’t covered here, please comment or email so they can be added to the checklist. Once you are ready to decommission – make sure you have addressed the following items.

Review the RBAC Configuration

1. Make sure the RBAC configuration allows Distribution group owners to add/remove accounts in the Distribution group they own. In addition to being the configured “owner”, the owners must be assigned a management role assignment policy that contains the My Distribution Groups and My Distribution Group Membership roles. Without these, they will not be able to actually manage the groups.

Move OAB

1. This will ensure any custom OAB settings you are using are available in Exchange  2010 and is best done via powershell

Move-OfflineAddressBook “Default  Offline Address List” –Server NewExchange2010Server

2. Microsoft provides additional guidance on things to look out for - Move the Offline Address Book Generation Process to Another Server

Ensure Routing Group Connectors are Removed

1. In ESM or via powershell, delete any legacy connectors that were previously created

Get-routinggroupconnector | Remove-routinggroupconnector

Ensure Exchange Objects Are Upgraded

All versions of these after the upgrade should be 0.10 (14.0.100.0) or above.

1. Distribution Groups – In EMS, Force an upgrade to all distribution groups

Get-DistributionGroup | Set-DistributionGroup -forceUpgrade

2. Address Lists – In EMS, Force an upgrade to all address lists. This only applies to the basic scenario where – Upgrade Default Address Lists from LDAP Filters to OPATH Filters

Get-AddressList | Set-AddressList -forceUpgrade

3. Email Address Policies – In EMS, Force an upgrade to all distribution groups. Of course this is only easy if the policy applies to all users (Mailnickname=*) or if it is a 2007 to 2010 migration where the LDAP filter has already been converted to OPATH, if the email recipient policies are not that straight forward or still need to convert, please review Microsoft’s article – Upgrade Custom LDAP Filters to OPATH Filters

Get-EmailaddressPolicy | Set-EmailaddressPolicy -forceUpgrade

Ensure Mailbox Recipient Policies are Transitioned to MRM

1. In ESM or via powershell, recreate any rules that were previously in Recipient Policies
2. Delete those Mailbox Management Recipient Policies

Remove Recipient Update Service

1. Delete the domain RUS in ESM
2. Delete the Enterprise RUS using ADSIEdit (in the address list container)

Remove Exchange 2003/2007 MBX databases

1. Ensure no more mailboxes are on Exchange 2003/2007 by either deleting or moving any
   remaining mailboxes
2. Query via EMC or:

get-mailbox –server Exchange2003mailboxserver

1. Delete mailbox databases

 Remove PF Store from Exchange 2003

1. Run Moveallreplicas.ps1 to ensure all replicas are moved to Exchange 2010
2. Once Exchange 2003/2007 replica is empty, delete via ESM
3. If prompted to provide a replacement PF database, choose the Exchange 2010 database

Move Public Folder Hierarchy

These steps can be done in ADSIEdit, but the goal is to avoid ADSIEdit if possible.

1. Using ESM, create a New Public Folders Container in the Exchange Server 2010 Admin group named “Folders”
2. Drag the PF tree from the 2003 admin group to the new “Folders” container
3. If this step is skipped or the customer tries to decommission and doesn’t know they need to do this, all public folders may disapear (This is bad news for Outlook 2003 users). The good news is that they aren’t gone – but the site folder needs to be recreated. David Ball has a write-up on how to re-create the infrastructure (this applies to all versions):
1. Recreate the Exchange “Folder Hierarchies” Container

Uninstall Exchange

1. Via installation media or add/remove programs
2. If it is a 2007 decommission, you might run into an error, this is resolvable without hacking in ADSIEdit
1. “Object is read only because it was created by a future version of Exchange: 0.10 (14.0.100.0). Current supported version is 0.1 (8.0.535.0).”