Hi Everyone, During my half yearly Exchange mailbox investigation, I found out that there are some items that cannot be deleted manually: 1. System Mailbox (they exist in every mailbox database with 0 bytes but contains several hundreds items each) 2. Deleted User Mailboxes still exist in the mailbox database eventhough I already select "Remove" from the EMC not "Disconnect" to delete the leaving user. is there anything that I should do to completely delete those mailboxes ? As for reclaiming disk space I have set the full backup everyday./* Server Support Specialist */

On Tue, 21 Jun 2011 01:13:25 +0000, Albert Widjaja wrote: >Hi Everyone, During my half yearly Exchange mailbox investigation, I found out that there are some items that cannot be deleted manually: > 1. System Mailbox (they exist in every mailbox database with 0 bytes but contains several hundreds items each) Leave them alone. >2. Deleted User Mailboxes still exist in the mailbox database eventhough I already select "Remove" from the EMC not "Disconnect" to delete the leaving user. "Remove" deletes the AD user. "Disconnect" just disconnects the mailbox from the AD user. However, from the Information Store's perspective they're identical actions that result in a mailbox whose legacyExchangDN value has no matchine user in the AD. >is there anything that I should do to completely delete those mailboxes ? They'll disappear when the disconnected date is older than the deleted item retention period (for either the mailbox or the database). IOW, just leave them alone and they'll go away if you've configured them to go away. >As for reclaiming disk space I have set the full backup everyday. Okay. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

Rich many thanks for your response so it can be deleted using the following script ? Get-MailboxStatistics -database "server\database" | where {$_.disconnectdate -ne $null} | foreach {Remove-mailbox -database $_.database -storemailboxidentity $_.mailboxguid} /* Server Support Specialist */

On Tue, 21 Jun 2011 05:37:18 +0000, Albert Widjaja wrote: > > >Rich many thanks for your response so it can be deleted using the following script ? That little script won't remove "it", it will remove ALL disconnected mailboxes in the database. But why do you want to do this manually? Why not simply set the deleted mailbox retention period on the database and let the normal background maintenance tasks do this? >Get-MailboxStatistics -database "server\database" | where {$_.disconnectdate -ne $null} | foreach {Remove-mailbox -database $_.database -storemailboxidentity $_.mailboxguid} --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

Hi, Why do you think the mailboxes still exist in the mailbox database? Do deleted mailboxes still present in EMC->Recipient Configuration->Mailbox? Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. Thanks Gen Lin-MSFT

ok, I got frustrated already since I could not delete the Server from the ROuting group (through ESM 2003). I am now thinking to exit the both servers from domain and then delete it manually then I have to manually delete the Exchange 2003 entries from ADSIedit./* Server Support Specialist */

Yes I did that already, even from the EMC I did right click and then REMOVE mailbox not disconnect but when I execute the Get-MailboxStatistics cmdlet it is still there ?/* Server Support Specialist */

On Wed, 22 Jun 2011 06:50:46 +0000, Albert Widjaja wrote: >Yes I did that already, even from the EMC I did right click and then REMOVE mailbox not disconnect but when I execute the Get-MailboxStatistics cmdlet it is still there ? Whoa, there. None of the Powershell code I gave you is going to remove mailboxes from Exchange 2003. You have two threads on this topic. You've been given things to try in the thread titled "Unable to delete the System Attendant mailbox to decommission Exchange Server 2003 ?" but you seem to have abandoned that thread and started this one. Do you, or don't you, have mailboxes assigned to the server you want to remove? Don't go looking at the "Mailbox" view in the EMS. Use the ADUC or, as Ed suggested, use "get-mailbox -server <servername>" to see if there are any in the AD. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

Hi, Get-MailboxStatistics will show the information about the removed mailbox. This is normal. Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. Thanks Gen Lin-MSFT