Single label domain rename with Exchange 2003 on DC

[nolando]

Hoping people have had some experience with this.

We have a single label AD domain, let me call it "label"
The Exchange 2003 Server was installed on a DC (yes I know, wrong wrong, I inherited it)
We want to upgrade to Exchange 2007

Our problems are...
Exchange 2007 cannot be installed in a single label domain
To repair the single label to, say "label.ext" we researched the following page

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/bb405948.aspx

however we found that as part of the domain rename process, each DC gets a script run against it. This script cannot run against a server that has Exchange installed on it so we have to remove Exchange on the DC.

I think we have 3 possible migration paths

1a. Migrate mailboxes to a newly installed Exchange 2003 server,
1b. Uninstall the original Exchange server,
1c. Run the domain rename process to fix the single label then
1d. Migrate to Exchange 2007

OR

2a. Build a new Exchange 2003 server
2b. Act as though in DR by using

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555603

to copy each information store to the new server
2c. Modify AD attributes of original mailboxes
2d. Uninstall the original Exchange 2003 server
2e. Run the domain rename process to fix the single label then
2f. Migrate to Exchange 2007

OR

3a. Create a new AD domain "label.ext",
3b. Install Exchange 2007,
3c. Create shortcut two way trust to the current "label" domain,
3d. Migrate mailboxes from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007,
3e. Uninstall the original Exchange 2003 server
3f. Perform domain rename on original "label" domain

The Exchange server is self contained and not on a SAN, we are currently scoping SAN solutions for this and a number of other applications. We have over 400 mailboxes occupying 120GB in 10 Information Stores across 4 Storage Groups

Has anyone else had to go through this? If so, how did you get it done, how long did it take, challenges. Have a missed an option that would make more sense?

Look forward to hearing of your experiences

 

[58sniper]

I vote for #1, but don't forget, there is a domain rename fixup tool you need to also use to resolve some Exchange issues with a rename.

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/