After doing all the usual stuff like moving all PF's off, moving/deleting mailboxes, uninstalling the Trendmicro AV etc. I'm trying to uninstall Exchange 2003 on passive W2003 node. I get following type of error message for each component - EventID 1002 Exchange server component Microsoft Exchange failed Error: 0x8000ffff - An unexpected error occurred. I also tried moving the Exchange group to this passive node but half the resources ended up failing. Obviously there is something weird happening. This node has been a little unstable for a while but only under load. Never did much about it since it was going soon. Anyway, my qustion is whether things will get even messier if I simply evict this passive node from the cluster then proceed to remove Exchange from the active node telling it is the last node? Thanks Neill

Officially the only supported method is to remove Exchange using add/remove programs. I presume you have been through the steps outlined in this article: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997844(EXCHG.65).aspx The steps at the top about removing services etc is what I am referring to. Simon.Simon Butler, Exchange MVP Blog | Exchange Resources

Yup, all resources are on the other node. Neill

Ended up just evicting the passive node then removing the EVS from the active node. Although had to track down some 'hidden' mailboxes that had attributes but never existed on the store. Cheers Neill