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Removing the Internet Mail Service

To remove an existing Internet Mail Service, stop new outbound messages from arriving at the Internet Mail Service, stop new inbound Internet messages from being accepted by the Internet Mail Service, monitor queues until they are empty, and then remove the Internet Mail Service.

  1. Remove all address space entries for the Internet Mail Service in the Address Space property page. This allows message transfer agents (MTAs) to reroute messages to other Internet Mail Services servicing the same address spaces.
  2. If the Internet Mail Service is used to connect Microsoft Exchange Server sites, remove all the entries in the Connected Sites property page. In addition, reconfigure all other Internet Mail Services that exchange messages directly with this Internet Mail Service. If the Internet Mail Service is the only one in the organization, all messages sent to the address spaces that were being serviced by the Internet Mail Service will be returned to the senders as non-deliverable.
  3. Stop the Internet Mail Service.
  4. In the Administrator window, select the Internet Mail Service, and then select the Connections tab.
  5. Under Transfer Mode, select None to clear the Internet Mail Service queues.
  6. Set the Retry interval to a short interval, such as .25 (15 minutes).
  7. Under Service Message Queues, choose Time-outs and set all time-outs for one hour.
  8. Start the Internet Mail Service.
  9. Select the Queues property page to monitor all the queues.
  10. When the queues are empty, stop the Internet Mail Service.
  11. Remove the Internet Mail Service by deleting the object from the Connections container.

For more information about connected sites, see "Connected Sites Properties" earlier in this chapter. For more information about address spaces, see "Address Spaces" earlier in this chapter. For more information about using the Internet Mail property page, see "Internet Mail Properties" earlier in this chapter. For more information about using the Internet Mail Service as a site connector, see Microsoft Exchange Server Concepts and Planning.