I am have trouble trying to remove an old exchange server that shows up in System Manager. The system I am trying to removed had all the mailboxes moved to a new server but was not removed from the system. This system was storing all the mailboxes on a network drive. The problem is that the system they were stored on has been removed and is no longer available. When I try to remove it I receive the following message: You cannot delete the Microsoft Exchange Server computer 'mail1' because it is still active. Shut down the server and try again'. I cannot remove the exchange software since the software thinks account are still active on this system. I need a way that I can over ride this. All users accounts are on the new systems. I have tried the manual removal but the system name still shows up in system manager on the primary exchange server.

What version of Exchange? 2003? Have you tried this option? http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833396/en-us Santhosh Sivarajan | MCTS, MCSE (W2K3/W2K/NT4), MCSA (W2K3/W2K/MSG), CCNA, Network+ Houston, TX http://blogs.sivarajan.com/ http://publications.sivarajan.com/ This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Yes I did try this method. The problem I have is System Manager still believes I have mailboxes for mailbox-enabled users. The server the mail was stored on is gone so no information stores remain for this server. All of the roles have been transfer to the new server. The system has been power off for about a month. I need to set up a second server to move the accounts and then rebuild this system. The last person only provide 12GB of disk space and the system has run out of storage on the C drive.

Have you tried to open your "System Manager" and right click the name of your server and "delete" ? even if you don't have the server up and runing, simply install "System Manager" on another 2003 server or even an XP machine (with adminpack.msi installed ofcourse). and do it from there.Yanir Ben-Nun / System Team Leader / IT / IS Professional

Hi, Have you tried Yanir’s suggestions? If the issue persists, I suggest you remove it using adsiedit according to KB833396. Any update on the issue? Thanks, Elvis

I would like to thank everyone for there help. The problem was that in the active directory I had about a dozen accounts that were not used and were pointing to this server. After removing there exchange attributes I could then delete this server.

Thank you for your feedback.