After Transitioning to Exchange 2007 from 2003; how to remove 2k3? 1

[dannyyo]

I have a lab setup which is a duplicate of our prodution network. Our Exchange 2003 server is installed on a Windows 2003 R2 Std server that's also a DC (don't ask me why?). I have a new Dell server that I'm instaling Windows 2008 Enterprise SP2, which I'm going to install exchange 2007 on. Here's a gist of the steps.

Install exchange 2007 sp2
move mailboxes
replicate public folders
once replication is done, remove exchange 2003 server.

When exchange 2003 coexists with 2007, all outlook clients work fine. However, once I run into issues when I start the process of removing the exchange 2003 server. First of all, when I try to uninstall from add remove programs, it doesn't do anything. Next if I try with exchange 2003 CD I get an error saying that exchange is known to have compatibility issues with this version of windows. So I'm left with using ADSIedit to remove this server. Then I open up a new can of worms.

Has other people experienced something like this and what steps worked for you? I can't seem to find any documentation that really works. Help!!!

 

[NetworkTek]

Here is the document i follow for this process

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb288905(EXCHG.80).aspx

One thing that will give you problems is if the routing group connector is not deleted. After you replicated the public folders did all the instances move and did you migrate the public folder hiearchy?? This is just simple stuff that comes to mind.

Network+ Inet+ MCP

 

[58sniper]

There's a whole pile of things that need to be done other than what's in your list.

Fellow MVP Henrik Walther has a good series that starts at

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Transitioning-Exchange-2000-2003-Exchange-Server-2007-Part1.html

Follow the entire series.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[dannyyo]

We waited about two days for all the public folders to replicate. Agee that we deleted the mail routing connectors then tried to remove the public folder database thinking now that all the Pfs were rehomed. After this attempt I can't remount the second storage db which holds the pfs. Then when I rebooted the exchange services wouldn't start. I have followed the doc mentioned by 58sniper above, which is a good guide but doesn't really cover in detail the replication process.

Part of the problem I think is because our exchange 03 server is a dc. I'm deploying exchange 2007 tomorrow. We are going to do all the steps except the replication of public folders. We upgraded all the pcs to outlook 2007, so I shouldn't need to rehome or replicate any of the pfs right? In the test enviroment I carried it this far and tried to remove the pf db but that failed as well. Is the transition to 2007 suppose to be this difficult?

Thanks for your responses.

Danny

 

[58sniper]

The transition, with proper planning, isn't difficult at all. I've done it a couple dozen times now. You should still replicate the folders over, which can take a REALLY long time (days). Once you're completely migrated off of 2003, if you no longer need the PF stores, kill 'em off.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[dannyyo]

Why even replicate the public folders if I am not going to be using them anyways?

I don't really have anything in the public folder besides free/busy and calendar, which no one really uses. Do I have to replicate the folders anyways?

Also, I discovered this morning that as soon as I delete the connectors, then restart the server with exch 2007 on it the information store will not start. Does this have anything to do with the public folder?

 

[dannyyo]

Couple of things that made this simple proccess so difficult in our environment.

1. After the replication was all said and done, we created a new "Public Folders Container" then dragging the old "Public Folders" in to this new "Folders". Read

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/bb288905

and the section under "To remove the last Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2000 server from an Exchange 2007 organization". This was a crucial part, that I found only in this documentation and no one else's had this step.

2. The add/remove would not work with removal of Exchange 2003. So I inserted the Exchange 2003 server CD into the server and ran the command "setup.exe /removeorg". And once the screen popped up I cancelled out of it. Then when I tried to remove it again, it worked!!! It must have been lock or something.

Thanks you all for your suggestions. But it was well worth it for me to test the whole removal process in a test environment, because production is running really clean now.