Upgrade from Exchange 2000 to 2003

[jonlake]

I am going to be doing an upgrade from Exchange 2000 to 2003. Currently it is on a Windows 2000 server. I have been browsing in the Sybex Mastering Exchange 2003 book. In here, the author talks about upgrading from Exchange 2000 to 2003, and says I have to upgrade the server OS as well. On Microsofts website, they say that Exchange 2003 will run on Server 2000. Just wondering if anyone has had this experience and can provide some details.

Some background info: The 2000 Windows server currently hosts exchange and web. It is a small organization (15 users). I believe the 2000 server is the only computer in the domain (there is a separate domain internally), and is the DC.

 

[mtnathan]

http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/ti/TiWin2003.doc

This link gives the exact compatibility matrix for the different versions of exchange.

In short, It is possible to run Exchange 2003 on a Windows 2000 server, but you might not be able to take advantage of certain advanced features of Exchange 2003.
Excerpt from that doc
"Exchange 2003
Exchange 2003 runs on either Windows 2000 with SP3 or Windows Server 2003 operating systems as well as within either Active Directory environment. Additionally, when upgrading an Exchange 2003 server from Windows 2000 to Windows Server 2003, Exchange 2003 automatically sets Windows Server 2003 to IIS 6.0 mode. If Windows Server 2003 is manually set to IIS 5.0 compatibility mode, Exchange 2003 automatically updates the setting to IIS 6.0 mode one time and shows an error message if Windows Server 2003 is again manually returned to IIS 5.0 compatibility mode. Exchange 2003 requires that Windows Server 2003 be set to IIS 6.0 mode for all HTTP services to function properly."