You said when you remove the DC your exchange keeps looking for it, how did you test removing or did you mean you tested by shutting it down? Pleae run the powershell command set-exchangeserver staticdomaincontroller and observe again. http://blogs.technet.com/b/jamec/archive/2010/03/26/get-exchangeserver-fl-won-t-return-static-domain-controllers.aspxJames Chong MCITP | EA | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+ Security+, Project+, ITIL msexchangetips.blogspot.com

We're trying to remove a domain controller from the domain, but when we do, our exchange 2007 server keeps looking for this server. Although the configuration dc is set to the new GC in the Exchange mc, it keeps looking for the old dc. When searching the registry I stumbled upon this entry: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Services\MSExchange ADAccess\Instance0] "ConfigDCHostName"="olddomaincontroller.domain.com" Since our previous administrator was very fond of 'tweaking' the network by placing static entries everywhere he thought useful, I'm not sure if this entry should be static, undefined or variable, or to be safely ignored. Can someone shine a light? Thanks!"Please contact your administrator..." :-(

You said when you remove the DC your exchange keeps looking for it, how did you test removing or did you mean you tested by shutting it down? Pleae run the powershell command set-exchangeserver staticdomaincontroller and observe again. http://blogs.technet.com/b/jamec/archive/2010/03/26/get-exchangeserver-fl-won-t-return-static-domain-controllers.aspxJames Chong MCITP | EA | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+ Security+, Project+, ITIL msexchangetips.blogspot.com

Hi James, indeed by shutting it down. I found an article which pointed me towards this command: Get-ExchangeServer -Status |fl The output shows that the old dc is still the CurrentConfigDomainController as well as in OriginatingServer. Should I alter both, or would Set-ExchangeServer "ExchangeServerName" -StaticDomainControllers $Null -StaticGlobalCatalogs $Null solve my issue? Thanks!"Please contact your administrator..." :-(

My understanding of this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/250570/en-us is that it is a tweak. Not sure why you didn't find it in CurrentControlSet, though.Mobile OWA For Smartphone www.leederbyshire.com email a@t leederbyshire d.0.t c.0.m

Yes set both of them to use the other DC, but note that once you propertly decomission the DC and its' gone from AD you can remove that command because exchange will know that DC doesn't exist, just shutting down a DC isn't typically a valid test. James Chong MCITP | EA | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+ Security+, Project+, ITIL msexchangetips.blogspot.com

This morning i ran the get-exchangeserver -status |fl command, and for some reason the exchange server saw the new dc as the CurrentConfigDomainController and the OriginatingServer, where the registry-entry still showed the old dc. So I changed it into the new (P)DC-name. This makes me wonder about the precedence of the settings. Even though the registry-setting seems static, Exchange was still able to change it's own settings to the new (our responding?) DC/GC. Should I actually remove the entire key (best after decommisioning the old dc)? Thanks again! "Please contact your administrator..." :-(

After some research it appears that ConfigDCHostName is still used post Ex 2003. However it is not used by default because that reg key does not exist by default. Someone must've added that a while back to hard code it which is why when you shut down your DC to test it will still trying to access it. Delete the reg key so that Exchange will use automatically selection. The Configuration Domain Controller specified in the registry wasn't found in the Sites container in Active Directory. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff359834(v=exchg.140).aspx : Create this registry key and specify a configuration domain controller name only if the automatically chosen domain controllers produce unwanted results. In such a case, find the problem, fix it, and delete the registry value so that the configuration domain controller is chosen automatically. James Chong MCITP | EA | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+ Security+, Project+, ITIL msexchangetips.blogspot.com

After some research it appears that ConfigDCHostName is still used post Ex 2003. However it is not used by default because that reg key does not exist by default. Someone must've added that a while back to hard code it which is why when you shut down your DC to test it will still trying to access it. Delete the reg key so that Exchange will use automatically selection. The Configuration Domain Controller specified in the registry wasn't found in the Sites container in Active Directory. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff359834(v=exchg.140).aspx : Create this registry key and specify a configuration domain controller name only if the automatically chosen domain controllers produce unwanted results. In such a case, find the problem, fix it, and delete the registry value so that the configuration domain controller is chosen automatically. James Chong MCITP | EA | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+ Security+, Project+, ITIL msexchangetips.blogspot.com

Due to replication errors between our domain controllers, Exchange had difficulties with finding a suitable gc. After replication returned to normal, exchange seemed to have cleared the entries by itself. However, from the EMC I was able to change gc, and ADTopology runs fine now. Thanks!"Please contact your administrator..." :-(