Old exchange 2003 server gone; a few mailboxes still point to old store

The answer to your question is you do nothing to those mailboxes, just move all your users and public folder across and decommission the old server as normal.

For further reading, see the following link: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchange2010/thread/06ad9dc4-ec81-4b5c-a9ee-6e00c08c7198

You can delete the mailbox DBs on your old server no problem as part of the migration to 2007/2010.

The legacy Exchange 2003 server to which I refer is physically non-existent. I am presently in a pure Exchange 2003 environment with a single Exchange 2003 server remaining and operational. The link you provided references moving them to 2010, which is not what's in play here. I am trying to clean up legacy objects prior to deleting the non-existent server from 2003 ESM (you can reference my other open question on the matter if you need more background information). This is strictly asking how to get rid of the mailboxes that still show as residing in the message store of the non-existent server.

Essentially what I'm chasing is this:

- I want to delete all object attributes related to the old, non-existent server.
- I want to then delete the non-existent server from ESM.

cool - that's what I was hoping for. I did a system state backup but I'll backup the store now and then proceed. I'll update accordingly. Sounds right, reads right. Stay tuned.

That sounds as if the old Exchange 2003 server was not cleanly decommissioned.

You can certainly try to remove the mailboxes and server using ESM, if this fails I might be  tempted to pay Microsoft and open up a PSS case with the subject something like "unable to remove objects and exchange server using ESM on exchange server that has already been decommissioned".

If it was not cleanly decommissioned, then there will be _many_ other artefacts left in AD that should be cleaned up.

Here is an article to assist if removing the server does not go cleanly via ESM, to remove via AD: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833396
Just continue from 75% of the way down, from Remove the Exchange Server 2003 server from Active Directory onwards

So I got an email this morning telling me to update this thread. I apologize but I've been on vacation over the Memorial day holiday and will attend to this shortly. I do intend to reward experts for this but have not had a chance to get to it yet. Patience everyone.

That did the trick. Removed the Exchange attributes then nuked the mailboxes from the extinct Exchange server. From there it was a piece of cake to Remove Server under ESM. Good call netflo.