Removing a test VM exchange 2013 server

hi
    try these commands in the link

https://blog.thirdechelon.org/2014/05/how-to-uninstall-exchange-2013-on-server-2012/

I assume you have Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2013 on VM and Exchange 2013 on physical Dell hardware. So you want to remove the one you have initally used exchange 2013 server.

1) Have you moved the complete exchange mailboxes, roles to Exchange 2013 on Dell hardware? (Including OAB, PF, Publishing Certificates for the new server, moved all mailboxes)

2) Have you decommisioned exchange 2007 completely?

3) Can you ensure the exchange 2013 VM does not have any mailboxes including arbitration (system mailboxes)?

If you say yes to all the above question then you can simply uninstall from the Add/Remove Programs on the Exchange 2013 VM server. You need to de-select all the roles and proceed.

your assumption is correct. I only had one test mailbox on the vm before everything went sideways with the 2007 server.
 
answer to question 1 is I have moved all mailboxes, OAB, Certs. But I still have a second 2007 server that I have 180 or so mailboxes that the client was xp. the helpdesk is in the middle right now of upgrading all those users right now. So of course I could not move PF's yet.

Your third question, I know there are no user mailboxes on the vm exchange server. the arbitration and system mailboxes are the ones I'm unsure of. I have read that I need to go into the domain and delete those and I should be able to uninstall.

the reason I'm wanting to decommission the vm is that the license is going to expire in less than 40 days. I should have all mailboxes and PF's moved to the new exchange 2013 dell server around that time but I would rather not rush into this.

Thanks for you help

Regarding the aribitration mailbox you are not supposed to delete it, they are system mailbox if it is present. We can move the mailbox safely to another database homed in the Dell hardware and here are steps to proceed.

Open the exchange shell and type the following

Get-MailboxDatabase
You will get the mailbox database names.

Get-Mailbox -Database "Source Database Name" -Arbitration

If it shows any mailboxes then you need to run the below command. The target database should be the your dell hardware exchange2013

Get-Mailbox -Database "Source Database Name" -Arbitration | New-MoveRequest -TargetDatabase "Target Database Name"

 To check on progress issue the following command;

Get-MoveRequestStatistics -MoveRequestQueue “Target Database Name”

When complete you should remove the movement requests like so;

Get-MoveRequest | where {$_.status -eq “Completed”} | Remove-MoveRequest

Ganesh,

After I run those commands and it completes, should I be able to uninstall the 2013 vm?

Ganesh

Also I appreciate you being very clear with me and your help.

If you move the mailboxes from the exchange 2013 on vm, then you can go to Program and Features and uninstall the Exchange 2013 on the VM, you should deselect the exchange roles during uninstallation, once it is successfully uninstalled the object on the AD will disappear.

Few Tips :
Ensure you have OAB configured properly and pointed to Exchange 2013 on Dell hardware,
If you have PF you can move to the new server
While uninstalling the exchange it will pass the role to the nearest available server, but ensure you have proper mail flow, webmail, outlook anywhere, activesync access are proper for the mailbox homed on the Dell hardware.
Ensure you have properly configured and remove the DNS entries pointing to the Exchange on VM.
If you have RootCA ensure all the server has domain certificate imported, this will provide trust authentication between servers and domain controllers.

When I run the move mailbox command I'm getting the following errors.

Also these are the mailboxes that show up when I run the -arbitration command you told me to run first.
Capture2.JPG

So it means you have the database name as database and you are pointing to the target database without quotes. The destination database if there is a space it should inside the double quote "

Get-Mailbox -Database "Database" -Arbitration | New-MoveRequest -TargetDatabase "database n-z"

Ganesh,

I was able to move the mailboxes and run the get-mailboxdatabase -arbitration showed no more mailboxes. however when I tried to uninstall the exchange vm it will not allow me to, saying there are still mailboxes in the database. Any ideas.

Ganesh was to the point and very helpful to this very new exchange administrator.