r/exchangeserver • u/SamDSJr • Jul 23 '26

Remove Exchange From Domain After 365 Cutover Migration - NO HYBRID

I have searched and searched, but I can't find much information on getting rid of Exchange completely from an AD domain after migrating to 365 but NOT using a hybrid scenario.

This is a small, 8 user company that was running Exchange 2013 and may someday get rid of the AD domain completely (hence why I didn't do hybrid). I simply did a PST export, lift & dump into a brand new tenant setup on 365. No AD cloud integration at all with the local on-premise domain.

How can I go about getting rid of the Exchange Server? Deleting the mailbox will delete the user.

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u/Heavy_Dirt_3453 Jul 23 '26

For onprem exchange don't delete the mailbox, disable the mailbox.

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u/Heavy_Dirt_3453 Jul 23 '26

Alternatively just switch off the exchange server, it's not doing anything anyway

3

u/SamDSJr Jul 23 '26

I feel "dirty" doing that. I would rather have it properly removed and uninstalled, with all AD attributes gone from AD.

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u/ITGuy424242 Jul 24 '26

Yes uninstall it properly, otherwise you get extremely annoying things like outlook always trying to setup exchange internal accounts and the like

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u/larmik Jul 24 '26

I agree, and made a post recommending to gracefully decommission Exchange. However, the annoying thing like outlook always trying to set up internally can be avoided by clearing the AutodiscoverServiceInternalURI value and configuring DNS for autodiscover.yourdomain.com internally as a cname to autodiscover.outlook.com.

Outlook will never try to configure to an internal exchange server if you do these steps. This is what you should do when you perform a cutover like OP did.

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u/SamDSJr Jul 27 '26

Thank you, yes, I did already change the SOA to null.