Network Upgrade

[squirre777]

I currently have Office 2K, XP and 2K Pro clients, and 2 servers running 2K. Both servers are domain controllers and one is running Exchange 2K. Im going to upgrade all clients to Office 2K3 first. My question is where to start from there. Im going to take both servers to 2K3, Exchange 2K3, and all clients up to XP. I know I have to upgrade Exchange first on the server, but is there an order I should follow? The plan is to upgrade all of Office first, then the XP clients here and there but not all before the server upgrades. Exchange will be upgraded then the OS followed by the other server. Never partook a project this big so any input would be greatly appreciated. This a pretty straight forward upgrade, or is there snags I should be looking out for? Thanks for all your help.

 

[LWComputingMVP]

Check out this previous question. I have links in it that provide valuable information on how to upgrade your domain from 2000 to 2003.

That said, It really doesn't matter the order of the client upgrades - you can upgrade Office first, or you can upgrade the OS first. You can do the client upgrades before the server upgrades or after the server upgrades. Really has very little consequence (if any) one way or the other.

On the server side, it's more finicky. Yes, upgrade Exchange first. Then upgrade the operating system. Other than that, read the links in the link I provided above and you should be ok. Just one thing - MAKE SYSTEM STATE and INFORMATION STORE BACKUPS FIRST. And if at all possible, setup a test network - using Virtual PC or VMWare if you must, but testing it first to at least familiarize yourself with the process is best, if possible.