Monday, August 18, 2008

Exchange 2007: Cannot remove accepted domains

Interesting little problem I discovered this morning, when trying to remove domains from the accepted domains tab in Exchange 2007 Server.

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Microsoft Exchange Error
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Action 'Remove' could not be performed on object 'domain-name.com.au'.

domain-name.com.au
Failed
Error:
Cannot remove the domain 'domain-name.com.au' because it is referenced by the proxy address template 'smtp:@domain-name.com.au'.

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Our site was a migrated Exchange 2003 organisation to Exchange 2007... which is why I probably couldn't see any reference to the domain in the E-Mail address policies tab. Though some are visible, so I'll just put it down as a dodgy migration process.

I stumbled upon this link, which helped me identify my issue. It references to edit a string for which I had no data for, might be because we're running Windows 2008 domain as well..

Anyway here are the steps I used to resolve the above issue:

Logged onto a domain controller (Windows 2008)

  1. Start Menu, Administraive Tools, ADSI Edit
  2. Action Menu, Connect to...
  3. From the drop down list labled 'Select a well known Naming Context:' I selected 'Configuration'
  4. Expanded the tree down, Configuration, Services, Microsoft Exchange, 'Org Name' , Recipient Policies
  5. Edit Default Policy
  6. Edit 'gatewayProxy'
  7. Removed the entry for the domain I was having problems with: 'smtp:@domain-name.com.au'
  8. Clicked OK, then OK again, closed ADSI Edit
  9. I then waited a few mintues and tried to remove the domain from the accepted domains tab.

It now removed without problems!