Uninstall Exchange Server 2010 step by step

How to uninstall Exchange Server 2010? That’s the question that you are asking yourself. After you have migrated to a new Exchange Server, you like to decommission Exchange Server 2010. That’s good, because Exchange 2010 end of life support is coming. In this article, you will learn how to uninstall Exchange Server 2010 step by step.

Uninstall Exchange Server 2010 HUB Transport/Client Access role

Remove send connectors

Start Exchange Management Console. Expand Microsoft Exchange On-Premises>Organization Configuration>Hub transport. Click the tab Send Connectors. Remove the connectors on the list. It should be empty.

Uninstall Exchange Server

Before you start, close Exchange Management Console and other applications running. We can finally uninstall/decommission Exchange Server 2010. Go to Control Panel>Uninstall a program. Click Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 from the list of programs. Click Uninstall.

Exchange Server 2010 Setup will start. Click Next.

Clear the check boxes for the server roles. These are the Clients Access role, Hub Transport role and Management Tools. Click Next. It will perform Readiness Checks. It will check the system and server to verify that the server roles are ready to be removed. After it completes, click Uninstall.

The removal is in progress.

It can take time. It took 27 minutes for the Client Access Role to uninstall. Make sure that the completion screen show completed. If not, view the setup logs and start troubleshooting. It finished removal. The removal of the Hub Transport Role and Client Access Role is complete. Click Finish.

Do the same steps on the other Exchange Server. Remove the Hub Transport Role and Client Access Role.

Uninstall Exchange Server 2010 Mailbox role

In the following steps, we are going to remove the mailbox role. The organization has a DAG configured. The mailbox servers can be uninstalled when they no longer host mailboxes or public folders. If they are not members of the DAGs and the Offline Address Books are not in use.

Remove Address Book Policies

Start Exchange Management Console. Expand Microsoft Exchange On-Premises>Organization Configuration>Mailbox.

Click the tab Address Book Policies.

If you have any Address Book Policies, remove them.

There should be no items to show in this view. See the following screen:

Remove Default Offline Address Book

Click the tab Offline Address Book. Delete the Default Offline Address Book (Exchange 2010). You can see that the Generation Server will list the Exchange Server 2010. The Default OAB will have the status False. If you already have a new Exchange Server in the organization, you see that Address Book too.

In this organization, there are two mailbox servers. Remove both of the Default Offline Address Book. Right click the Default Offline Address Book and click Remove.

First Default Offline Address Book is removed. Now let’s remove the second Default Offline Address Book.

The Default Offline Address Book are both removed. Keep the Default Offline Address Book (Ex2013). This is your Exchange 2013 or higher Offline Address Book. If you don’t have a new Exchange Server installed, you will not see any default Offline Address Book. The screen will be empty.

The next step is to remove the mailbox databases.

Remove passive database copies

Start Exchange Management Console. Expand Microsoft Exchange On-Premises>Server Configuration>Mailbox.

The passive copies will show Healthy under the Database copies column. Right-click each passive copy and select Remove from the context menu. You will get a warning prompt if you are sure to remove the database. Click Yes. A second warning prompt will appear that the copy of the mailbox database on the server has been removed. Click OK. Good to know: Active copies will display as Mounted. You won’t have an option to remove these.

Repeat for all the other databases. All passive database copies are removed.

In the next step, we will remove the servers from DAG Membership.

Remove the servers from DAG Membership

Start Exchange Management Console. Expand Microsoft Exchange On-Premises>Organization Configuration>Mailbox.

Click the tab Database Availability Groups. You will find your DAG name. In this organization it is DAG1. Right click and click Manage Database Availability Group Membership…

Select the servers in the list and click the X button.

Servers are removed from the list. Click the Manage button to start the removal process.

It starts the Exchange servers removal process from the DAG Membership. Give it a couple of minutes.

The Exchange Servers are successfully removed from the Database Availability Group Membership. Click the Finish button to exit.

In the next step, we are going to remove the active databases.

Remove databases

Now let’s remove the active (mounted) databases. See the following screen:

Let’s remove the active databases with PowerShell.

First list the databases. Run Exchange Management Console. Run the following command:

[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxDatabase

Name         Server    Recovery       ReplicationType
----         ------    --------       ---------------
DB9          MBX01     False          None
DB1          MXB01     False          None
DB4          MXB01     False          None
DB6          MXB01     False          None
DB12         MXB01     False          None
DB13         MXB01     False          None
DB14         MXB01     False          None
DB15         MXB01     False          None
DB3          MXB01     False          None
DB16         MXB01     False          None
DB17         MXB01     False          None
DB20         MXB01     False          None

Remove the database with the Remove-MailboxDatabase command.

[PS] C:\>Remove-MailboxDatabase "DB1"

Are you sure you want to perform this action?
Removing mailbox database "DB1".
[Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [N] No  [L] No to All  [?] Help : Y
WARNING: The specified database has been removed. You must remove the database file located in D:\Databases\DB1\DB1.edb from your
computer manually if it exists. Specified database: DB1

Do the same with all the other databases. You can use the syntax -Confirm:$false at the end of the command. It will not prompt you with the message if you are sure to perform this action.

The command will look like this.

[PS] C:\>Remove-MailboxDatabase "DB9" -Confirm:$false

[PS] C:\>Remove-MailboxDatabase "DB4" -Confirm:$false

What if you have a lot of databases on the Exchange Server. Let’s make the process faster. List all the databases on the specific Exchange Server 2010.

[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxDatabase -Server "MBX01"

Name         Server    Recovery       ReplicationType
----         ------    --------       ---------------
DB6          MXB01     False          None
DB12         MXB01     False          None
DB13         MXB01     False          None
DB14         MXB01     False          None
DB15         MXB01     False          None
DB3          MXB01     False          None
DB16         MXB01     False          None
DB17         MXB01     False          None
DB20         MXB01     False          None

Remove all the databases on the server. Run the following command. Confirm with A. You can use the syntax -Confirm:$false at the end of the command. It will not prompt you with the message if you are sure to perform this action.

[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxDatabase -Server "MBX01" | Remove-MailboxDatabase

Confirm
Are you sure you want to perform this action?
Removing mailbox database "DB6".
[Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [N] No  [L] No to All  [?] Help : A
WARNING: The specified database has been removed. You must remove the database file located in G:\Databases\DB6\DB6.edb from your
computer manually if it exists. Specified database: DB6
WARNING: The specified database has been removed. You must remove the database file located in G:\Databases\DB12\DB12.edb from your
computer manually if it exists. Specified database: DB12
WARNING: The specified database has been removed. You must remove the database file located in G:\Databases\DB13\DB13.edb from your
computer manually if it exists. Specified database: DB13
WARNING: The specified database has been removed. You must remove the database file located in G:\Databases\DB14\DB14.edb from your
computer manually if it exists. Specified database: DB14
WARNING: The specified database has been removed. You must remove the database file located in H:\Databases\DB15\DB15.edb from your
computer manually if it exists. Specified database: DB15
WARNING: The specified database has been removed. You must remove the database file located in H:\Databases\DB3\DB3.edb from your
computer manually if it exists. Specified database: DB3
WARNING: The specified database has been removed. You must remove the database file located in H:\Databases\DB16\DB16.edb from your
computer manually if it exists. Specified database: DB16
WARNING: The specified database has been removed. You must remove the database file located in D:\Databases\DB17\DB17.edb from your
computer manually if it exists. Specified database: DB17
WARNING: The specified database has been removed. You must remove the database file located in D:\Databases\DB20\DB20.edb from your
computer manually if it exists. Specified database: DB20

All the mailbox databases are removed from the Exchange Server. Verify it on the following place.

In the next step, we will remove the Database Availability Group.

Remove DAG

Right click the DAG name and click Remove.

DAG is removed from the Exchange Management Console. See the following screen:

In the next step, we will remove the Public Folders.

Remove Public Folders

Do you have public folders? Remove them first from the Public Folder Management Console.

After you remove the public folders. Delete the public folder database from the Exchange Management Console. Expand Microsoft Exchange On-Premises>Organization Configuration>Mailbox. Select the Database Management tab. Right click the Public Folders database and click remove. You get a prompt, click Yes to All and click OK on the second prompt.

The mailbox databases are removed. The public folder is deleted too. Check the following screen. All should be empty.

The last step is to uninstall Exchange Server from the Control Panel.

Uninstall Exchange Server

Before you start, close Exchange Management Console and other applications running. We can finally uninstall/decommission Exchange Server 2010. Go to Control Panel>Uninstall a program. Click Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 from the list of programs. Click Uninstall.

Exchange Server 2010 Setup will start. Click Next.

Clear the check boxes for the server roles Mailbox Role and Management Tools. Click Next.

It will check the system and server to verify that the server roles are ready to be removed. After it completes, click Uninstall.

The removal is in progress. It can take time. Make sure that the completion screen show completed. If not, view the setup logs and start troubleshooting. The removal of the Mailbox Role is complete. Click Finish.

Do the same steps on the other Exchange Server that is holding the Mailbox Role.

Verify uninstall Exchange Server 2010

After uninstalling Exchange Server 2010, you can verify if they are deleted from the organization. Run the following command:

[PS] C:\>Get-ExchangeServer | Select Name, AdminDisplayVersion

Name AdminDisplayVersion
---- -------------------
EX01 Version 15.1 (Build 1847.3)
EX02 Version 15.1 (Build 1847.3)

It will list the Exchange Servers running in the organization. The Exchange Servers 2010 are removed. Two Exchange Servers 2016 are running at the moment in the organization.

Conclusion

In this article, you learned how to uninstall Exchange Server 2010. It’s important to follow the steps as described. If you immediately go to the Control Panel and uninstall Exchange Server 2010, you get errors. I hope that this article helped you decommission Exchange 2010 in the organization.

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