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Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

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As a continuation to ‘Remove orphaned Exchange 5.5 objects’ I am in a much worse mess. I have recently started at a company that had multiple Exchange 5.5 sites across multiple domains and the replication and trusts rarely worked correctly on either. As a result the company decided to create a new 2000 active directory and ignore the old problems but used the Exchange 5.5 as the bridgehead for the new Exchange 2000, as you can imagine this just caused more mess. As the old NT4 domain / Exchange 5.5 sites have been removed the servers were just switched off and have since been re-formatted, destroyed or sold off. This leaves me with an Exchange 5.5 bridgehead which is still supporting some Exchange 5.5 servers and some Exchange 2000 servers, but with numerous sites that no longer exist and cannot be connected to in order to replicate them and there users out, and a global address list that has more people in it that don’t exist than do.
I am in desperate need of help, if I could get away with removing the remaining Exchange 5.5 sites and making the Exchange 2000 the bridgehead in order to just switch off the old NT4 Exchange 5.5 bridgehead I would, but the troublesome sites a replicated into the Exchange 2000.
Thankyou.

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Reply To: Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

In reply to Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

If you still have at least one functional Exchange 5.5 server, and from your message, it appears that you do, you can use this method to remove those orphaned sites:

Open the Exchange 5.5 Administrator program in Raw mode (Admin.exe /r).

Select the orphaned object, open its raw properties, and make note of the Obj-Dist-Name and Object Version attributes.

Using the Obj-Dist-Name attribute from the orphaned object, re-create the object in the original site.

Make changes to the object, and apply the changes until the Object Version value of the re-created object exceeds that of the object in the remote site.

Either wait for the newly re-created object to replicate throughout the organization, or force replication. To make sure replication has occurred to the remote site, check the Object Version value.

Delete the object from the original site, and replicate the change.

The deletion will now replicate to the remote site and remove the formerly orphaned object.

Note that this article may assist you in ridding yourself of those orphaned sites:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/284148/EN-US/

Reply To: Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

In reply to Reply To: Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

Thank you for the rapid response, the details above I already had from a recent Tech Republic bullitin which lead me to asking the question in the first place. But neither them nor the Microsoft page help with the removal of the orphaned sites in Exchange 5.5.

Reply To: Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

In reply to Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

“Remove orphaned Ex 5.5 objects”. From where? The 5.5 side or the Active Directory side? If you want to remove them from the 5.5 can’t you just delete the dir rep and get rid of the site? If you want to remove them from AD then use ADSI Edit>Config container>Services>ORGNAME>Administrative Groups>delete the orphaned Admin Group

Reply To: Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

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Remove from the 5.5 side, but no I can’t delete the replication as the other server no longer exists. Its the whole orphaned site I need to get rid of.
Thank you for your help so far.

Reply To: Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

In reply to Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

Can you create a new Administrative group that includes your current sites?

Verify that it works.

Then run the cleanup TechKid suggested and remove the old admin groups.

Reply To: Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

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Well we might be getting closer but I am not there yet.
Some of the orphaned sites are in the Exchange 2000 Admin Group, but not all of them.
I have started ADSI Edit but cant find the following ‘Config container>Services>ORGNAME>Administrative Group’ the only container I have that has anything to do with Exchange is ‘Microsoft Exchange System Objects’ but that just contains public folders, am I looking in the wrong place?
This may solve the Exchange 2000 problems but I am still looking for a fix for the Exchange 5.5 as well.
Thank you for you help so far, please supply more.

Reply To: Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

In reply to Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

I’d guess that somewhere out there in whats left of the Ex55 bunch of servers there are dead DirRepl connectors that have not been deleted.

If you find and delete them then run Directory Consistency Checker it should remove all objects that related to site on the other side of that DirRepl connector.

Reply To: Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

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Please see the e-mail i sent you.

Reply To: Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

In reply to Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

I have the same problem. We can’t recreate the object because the sites no longer exist. How can we clean the directory – exchange 5.5?

Reply To: Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

In reply to Reply To: Exchange 5.5 orphaned sites

I wish I knew, but seeing the amount of replies I have had I am coming to believe that there is no answer.
If some one gets back to without coming through this forum could you please e-mail me there answer.
Thanks
karl.harratt@tjbrent.co.uk

[Author]

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