Sunday, September 2, 2012

Configuring an external time source on a PDC Emulator


Once you run the Best Practice Analyzer for the Active Directory Domain Services on a Windows 2008 R2 domain controller you will see the following error

"The PDC Emulator master dc.xxx.xxx in this forest should be configured to correctly synchronize time from a valid time source"

To clear this error configures an external time source as the authoritative time source for the entire forest.

Run the following command on the domain controller where PDC Emulator master role exists.

1. Run the command prompt as an administrator

2. At the command prompt, type w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:server,0×8, /syncfromflags:manual /update

server is the name of the time source that you want to configure, and then press ENTER.

Removing Exchange 2010


I have installed Exchange 2010 so many times, but never had to remove them specially if it is in production environment. But since i installed it in an environment where Exchange 2003 is having and they wanted to test the new version as a coexistence scenario. This was actually done long time back though I could not write.

Here are the steps.
 



1.     Remove the Discovery Search Mail Box.
 
-       You can view the Mailbox using following command
 
[PS] C:\>Get-Mailbox *discoverysearch*
 
Name                      Alias                ServerName       ProhibitSendQuota
----                      -----                ----------       -----------------
DiscoverySearchMailbox... DiscoverySearchMa... exch-2010        50 GB (53,687,091,200 bytes)
 
-       Then remove the Mailbox (Replace the "Exch-2010" with your server name)
 
[PS] C:\>get-mailbox *discoverysearch* | where {$_.Servername -eq "Exch-2010"} | Remove-Mailbox
 
2.     Remove the Arbitration Mailboxes.
 
[PS] C:\>get-mailbox -Server Exch-2010 -Arbitration | Disable-Mailbox -Arbitration –DisableLastArbitrationMailboxAllowed
 
 
3.     Remove the Mailbox Database.
[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxDatabase | Remove-MailboxDatabase
4.     Remove the Public Folder Database.
 
[PS] C:\>Get-PublicFolderDatabase | Remove-PublicFolderDatabase 
 
5.     Remove the Routing Group Connectors.
 
-       To view the connectors
[PS] C:\>Get-RoutingGroupConnector
 
Name                            SourceRoutingGroup                                           TargetRoutingGroup
EXCH-2010-Mailsvr03     Exchange Routing Group (DWBGZMFD01QNBJR)     First Routing Group
Mailsvr03-EXCH-2010     First Routing Group                                               Exchange Routing Group
 
-       To remove the connectors
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-RoutingGroupConnector | Remove-RoutingGroupConnector
 
6.     Finally Remove the Exchange Server from the Control Panel, better if you remove the server roles one by one since it is easy to troubleshoot if the uninstallation gives any errors.