*N.B. this is an old article and may no longer be relevant*
Consider this scenario. You want to add an additional Exchange 2010 mailbox server that is going to be part of a DAG but you don’t want it to have any primary mailbox database copies e.g. a DR server that is only going to have database copies of activation preference 3
During installation you are forced to create a mailbox database. So here’s a simple way of achieving the goal.
My command to install the mailbox node is this:
C:\Installs\ExchangeMedia\Setup.com /mode:Install /Role:M /TargetDir:D:\Exchange /u:C:\Installs\ExchangeMedia\Updates /InstallWindowsComponents /MdbName:DefunctDB /DbFilePath:C:\Installs\DefunctDB.edb /LogFolderPath:C:\Installs
My command to tidy up the database and files after a reboot is this:
Remove-MailboxDatabase DefunctDB -Confirm:$false; del C:\installs\*.log; del c:\installs\*.edb; del c:\installs\*.jrs; del C:\installs\*.chk
Now you have a nice tidy mailbox server to add to your DAG and replicate mailbox databases to.