Moving Exchange 2003 to new server

[dougmbti]

I just went through an upgrade from NT4 PDC to Win 2K AD and Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003 and all is ok. Yippeee!!!!!!!

The old Exchange 5.5 was running on a Win 2k Server. The new Exchange 2003 is currently running on the Win 2K AD server temporarily. That was the easiest place to put it for a couple of days until I could make a permanent home for it.

I need to rebuild the old 5.5 server as it had a bunch of things going wrong ... hence the upgrade. Once rebuilt, I want to make it the Exchange 2003 Server again and move the current Exchange 2003 from the AD Server to this machine.

I don't need to run 2 Exchanges - just want all Exchange responsibilities on one server - preferably not the ADS.

Any recommendations or steps to make this as quick and painless as possible? Do I have to run through the active directory connector stuff on this new machine and then install a new copy of Exchange on it? Then, how do I get the current data to this new install?

Much Thanks,
Doug

 

[Bedpan]

This migration should be a lot easier then your last one from 5.5 to 2003.

The easiest way to do this is to simple set up the new server (really the old one but we will call it new) with Win2003, install Exchange 2003 then join the existing organization. Once this is done, you can re-home you public folders and user AD to move your mailboxes to the new server. After that is all done, uninstall exchange from the older server.

Here is a link for doing the samething but going from Exchange 2000 to 2003. The procedure is the same except you can skip the domain and forest prep as they are already done.

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Migrating-Exchange2000-Exchange-2003-Hardware.html

As for you AD Connectors, they should not be needed any more as you are not longer running Exchange 5.5. The connectors are meant to link exchange 5.5 to AD. Exchange 2000 and 2003 are fully AD aware.

Hope this helps..

Mike

 

[dougmbti]

Thanks for the advice.

This is on my list for this weekend. I'll get a good night sleep tonight just in case!