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I have a Small Business Server that I want to finally get out of my life. The problem is I cannot dcpromo (demote) the domain controller because I have to remove Exchange 2007 first. I cannot uninstall Exchange 2007 because I cannot Remove the Public Folders. When I try to remove the Public Folders I get an error message that says:

"The public folder database "server\Second Storage Group\Public Folder Database" contains folder replicas. Before deleting the public folder database, remove the folders or move the replicas to another public folder database. For detailed instructions about how to remove a public folder database, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=81409."

The problem is that the instructions assume that the Public Folders is going to be migrated to a different server. The on-premisis Exchange has been migrated to Office 365 and now I just want to decommission the hardware.

Mark
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1 Answers1

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As you have gone to the cloud, what I would do is as follows.

  1. Remove all of the public folders that can. Open the Public Folder management console from EMC and delete everything that can be deleted under both Public and System folders. That should remove most things.
  2. If you have managed to remove everything, EMC should then let you drop the public folder database. You can then continue with the uninstall. Try dropping the mailbox database as well, so that you can be sure there aren't any errors with regards to mailboxes.
  3. If it is still throwing an error, then you can remove the reference to the public folder through ADSIEDIT. However I do NOT recommend that you go straight to that step before trying to remove the public folders correctly. If for any reason you wanted to bring Exchange back in house (and you can never say never), it can cause you problems using the adsiedit method. By at least removing most content first, you reduce the impact that the "nuclear" step of using adsiedit has.

Dropping both the public and mailbox database should allow the uninstall to continue.

Sembee
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  • The EMC method did not work. I deleted the only reference it Public Folders (CU=Public Folders Security??) but Uninstalling Exchange continues to generate the same error. Thank you for looking into this. – Mark Jan 30 '16 at 15:05
  • So you started the Public Folder Management Console, and removed everything that you could in there? The adsiedit reference to public folders is buried. http://blog.dargel.at/2012/01/19/remove-public-folder-using-adsiedit/ – Sembee Jan 30 '16 at 18:49
  • When I opened ADSI-Edit the path referenced in the blog link do not exist. – Mark Feb 01 '16 at 21:56
  • The path definitely exists, I checked on my own reference system before posting the link to ensure that it was correct. That is where Exchange configuration data is stored. Are you looking in the correct part of adsiedit? – Sembee Feb 02 '16 at 11:30
  • I am not sure if I am looking at the correct part. How many parts are there? I have opened every folder, if those folders had been there, they are gone now but the error persists I when attempt to uninstall the last portion of Exchange; that being "Mailboxes". 1 of 2 processes fails on the last swipe. I wish there were a way to attach a screen shot here. Again, thank you for your time. – Mark Feb 02 '16 at 15:20
  • Start adsiedit.msc. Choose Connect to... Change the selection under "Select a well known context" to Configuration. Choose OK. The path in the above blog posting should then be available to you. – Sembee Feb 02 '16 at 20:26
  • Got it. That worked. Public Folders and Exchange are now removed from the server. Thank you. – Mark Feb 03 '16 at 21:33