How to manually remove an Exchange 2000 installation

In some situations, you may need to remove Exchange 2000 from a server. The best way to do this is to re-run Setup, and at the Component Selection screen click the Remove option for the installed components.

If this does not work, it may be because there are still mailbox-enabled users. To disconnect this server's mailboxes from their associated users, use the Active Directory User and Computers snap-in to select all users with mailboxes on this server, right-click and select Exchange Tasks, and then click Delete Mailbox. If you are still not able to uninstall using the Setup program, you can uninstall Exchange 2000 manually, as described in the "More Information" section.

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: To remove Exchange 2000 completely from a system, it is important to understand other components (apart from the Exchange 2000 services) that are affected by the installation of Exchange 2000. Exchange 2000 depends on the Active Directory services that Microsoft Windows 2000 provides. In addition, protocol support is obtained by extending the capabilities and functionality of the Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS).

The following is a list of the Exchange 2000 services (and their corresponding registry locations) that are installed during a typical Exchange 2000 installation.
There are additional modifications and additions made in the registry during a typical installation. These entries will need to be removed also.

1. Stop and disable all Microsoft Exchange services on the server, and then delete the following registry keys:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ESE98
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\DAVEX
   
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ESE98
   Note This key will not exist on an Exchange 2000 SP2 installation.
   
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\EXIFS
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ExIPC
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\EXOLEDB
   
   Microsoft Exchange Directory Service to Metabase
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeMU
   
   Microsoft Exchange Event
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeES
   
   Microsoft Exchange IMAP4
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\IMAP4Svc
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeAL
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeDSAccess
   
   Microsoft Exchange Information Store
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS
   
   Microsoft Exchange Management
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeMGMT
   
   Microsoft Exchange Message Transfer Agent Stacks
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeMTA
   
   Microsoft Exchange POP3
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\POP3Svc
   
   Microsoft Exchange Publish Free/Busy HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeFBPublish
   
   Microsoft Exchange Routing Engine
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RESvc
   
   Microsoft Exchange Site Replication Service
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeSRS
   
   Microsoft Exchange System Attendant
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeSA
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeTransport
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeWEB
   
   
   If there is a Notes connector or a GroupWise connector installed on the server that is running Exchange 2000 Server, remove the related registry entries in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services:
   • Anything that starts with LME-
   • Anything that starts with SERVERNAME-LME
   If Microsoft Office 2003, Office XP, or Microsoft Windows SharePoint Service is not installed, remove the related registry entries in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services:
   • MSSEARCH
2. Remove the Internet Information Server component and remove the Metabase.bin file from the sysroot\system32\inetsrv folder.
   
   Important You must remove only the Internet Information Server component and not the Common Files. If you remove the Common Files, you also remove the Cluster service. If you remove the Cluster service, you must reinstall it. The Windows Component Wizard may have already removed the Internet Information Server component and the Metabase.bin file.
3. Restart the server.
4. Rename the Exchsrvr folder structures on all drives. For example, rename C:\Program files\Exchsrvr to C:\Program files\Exchsrvrold.
   
   Rename the Drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Integration\Microsoft Exchange 2000 folder. For example, rename Drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Integration\Microsoft Exchange 2000 to Drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Integration\Microsoft Exchange 2000 Old.
5. Reinstall the Internet Information Server component making sure to include Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and Network News Transport Protocol.
6. If you installed the Exchange 2000 server into an existing Exchange 5.5 site, you will need to delete the Exchange 2000 server object from the Exchange 5.5 Admin program if it is present.
   
   Note You may need to remove Active Directory objects associated with the removed server.

To remove the server from Active Directory, start Exchange System Manager and select the server object. Right-click the object, click All Tasks, and then click Remove Server. This will remove all references to the server in Active Directory, and remove the mailbox-enabling attributes from all Active Directory users with mailboxes on the removed server.

Warning If you use the Active Directory Sites and Services console, the Active Directory Services Interface Edit snap-in, the Lightweight Directory Protocol utility, or any other Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) version 3 client and incorrectly modify the attributes of Active Directory objects, you can cause serious issues that may require you to reinstall Microsoft Windows 2000 Server and/or Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server throughout your entire organization. Microsoft cannot guarantee that the issues that result from the incorrect modification of Active Directory object attributes can be solved. Modify these attributes at your own risk.

If you are unable to install or run Exchange System Manager, you may also manually remove enough of the server attributes to allow a successful reinstallation attempt by using the following method. This method does not perform cleanups of references to the server object outside the server's own container. Use of this method is discouraged unless you intend to immediately reinstall the server into the same administrative group, because it may require manually removing or editing many attributes on objects throughout Active Directory.

Note You can remove the entire Microsoft Exchange 2000 organization from Active Directory by deleting the Microsoft Exchange object. When you delete this object, you may be forced to reinstall all Microsoft Exchange servers in your enterprise. If you intend to remove Exchange entirely from your enterprise, you should also open the Active Directory Users and Computers management console, and remove the Microsoft Exchange System Objects container. For more information about how this can be done using Active Directory Sites and Services, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: