How to safely decommission spare Exchange 2016 Server from organization.

There are many occasion when an exchange admin needs to decommission an un-used Exchange server from organization that might be installed by mistake and doesn’t full fill business requirement. There are lots of blogs or link present on internet that may guide you to do via ADSI Edit but the preferred way is to do gracefully using front end (exchange PowerShell OR GUI). Following PS script is verified in Exchange 2016 test environment for the same purpose.

$Exch2k16="exmbx2" #Exchange Server name that needs to be removed. 
$DestDb="Mailbox Database 1529611009" #Destination mailbox Database where the mailboxes of server will be moved. 
Get-MoveRequest|Remove-MoveRequest -Confirm:$False #Delete move mailbox request if exists
Get-Mailbox -Server $Exch2k16 |New-MoveRequest -TargetDatabase $DestDb #Move mailboxes to other database. 
Get-Mailbox -AuditLog -Server $Exch2k16 |New-MoveRequest -TargetDatabase $DestDb  #Move Auditing mailbox
Get-Mailbox -Monitoring -Server $Exch2k16 |New-MoveRequest -TargetDatabase $DestDb #Move health/monitoring db
Get-Mailbox -Archive -Server $Exch2k16 |New-MoveRequest -TargetDatabase $DestDb #Move all archives
Get-Mailbox -PublicFolder -Server $Exch2k16 |New-MoveRequest -TargetDatabase $DestDb #Move Publicfolder mailboxes
Get-MailboxDatabase -Server $Exch2k16 |Remove-MailboxDatabase -Confirm:$False #Remove MailboxDB
Get-ReceiveConnector -Server $Exch2k16|Remove-ReceiveConnector -Confirm:$False #Remove Receive connector.  

Now uninstall exchange binaries using following command.

setup /m:uninstall

 

#exchange, #movemailbox