Decommissioning an Exchange Server - steps?

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/286709.htm

describes how to remove an exchange server from EV.

The document describes to check sql to see if there are any mailboxes associated with the mentioned server, and a 2nd query has to be run to determine the ' pending tasks'
(use mailboxdatabase
select * from JournalArchive where (serviceentryid = ' taskentryid')  (taskentryid corresponds with the mailboxarchiving task, which is manually checked.)

If this query returns rows, what does that mean?
If it returns rows, it it enough to leave the TASK running?
Can you (when you leave the task running) remove the exchangeserver (effectively orphaning the task)?

Does anyone have a neat process to do this cleanly?

Thanks

Gertjan