User Profile Migration/Exchange and Outlook Upgrade

[davy2k]

Hi All,
I just inherited the following environment from an Administrator that quit:

1) Exchange 2003/Active Directory running on the same box (Windows 2003) (DNS pointing to an External DNS)
2) PCs running Outlook 2000 (Office 2000) and not joined to the domain
3) Upgrade NAT Device to a Firewall

What needs to be done:
1) Transition from Exchange 2003 to 2007 (Exchange 2007 on a separate box)
2) Upgrade Office 2000 to Office 2007
3) Join users to the domain and migrate profile

My plan:
1) Transition Exchange 2003 to 2007 Migrate legacy mailbox etc.
2) Uninstall Office 2000 and reinstall Office 2007 reconnect to New Exchange
3) Copy User profile using File and Transfer Wizard
4) Join the PCs to the new Domain
5) Copy User profile from local to domain

My Questions:
I need another set of eyes to assist me with the order of the plan above.
Do I need to move user emails to .pst files first (using Outlook 2000) before migrating?

Any suggestions are welcomed.

Thank you

 

[58sniper]

If it were me, I'd do the Exchange migration last. Get everything else cleaned up first.

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/

 

[TechyMcSe2k]

Going from Office 2000 to Office 2007 is a big jump for users...I would recommend some onsite training for your users to get familiar with Word and Excel...mainly the latter. Big learning curve in the new O2K7.


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I hope any help I give leads to great successes.
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[markdmac]

How many workstations are you talking about here?

I'd use ForensiT User Profile Wizard to migrate user profiles.

http://www.forensit.com/domain-migration.html.

If not concerned about that, then I would join the PCs to the domain via VBScript.

I'd push out Office via GPO once you have the machines logging into the domain.

I would disagree with waiting to upgrade Exchange. Get it upgraded before the workstations so your users will have immediate access to the advanced features (such as scheduling assistant) when they get Outlook 2007. Otherwise you will have 2 learning curves for them.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

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[davy2k]

Thank you all for your advice. I have successfully transitioned to Exch 2007, but I still have some issues. Most of the users have their mails in .pst files (since POP3 was used to download mails from ISP) which I exported back into Outlook 2007.

I would like to move all their mails including calendars contacts etc to the new Exchange server. Please could you send me a link to a step by step process on how to go about it.

Thank you.

 

[TechyMcSe2k]

How to manage .pst files in Outlook 2007, in Outlook 2003, and in Outlook 2002

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287070

_______________________________________
Great knowledge can be obtained by mastering the Google algorithm.

 

[davy2k]

Thank you TechyMcSe2k for the link, but I need to know how to move/export mails that are imported from .pst files into Exchange 2007.

Thank you

 

[TechyMcSe2k]

How to Import Mailbox Data

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691363.aspx

To import data from a .pst file, you must run the Import-Mailbox cmdlet from a 32-bit computer that has the following installed:

The 32-bit version of the Exchange management tools

Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2)




_______________________________________
Great knowledge can be obtained by mastering the Google algorithm.

 

[58sniper]

Keep in mind that if you just export the mail to .pst and import on a new server, you'll lose legacy DN info, which makes replies to earlier email troublesome.

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/

 

[davy2k]

Hi All,
Thank you for your assistance. I have found a way to move the mails back to exchange from pst file.

I import the mails from pst into outlook and then drag and drop the folder into the folder under the "Mailbox - Name of User" and then Outlook will update and synchronize with Exchange.

However, After upgrading from Office 2000 to 2007, I have an issue which is outlook complains about .ost limit being reached, and when I checked the size of the ost it was 2GB and when I searched the internet I discovered that "Outlook is running in non-Unicode mode against Exchange"

I tried the workaround from this site but could not find the PST in registry

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832925

The strange thing is other PCs on the network do not have this issue. which is strange.

Also, a user's contact list from outlook 2000 complains about reaching Outlook Distribution List reaching its maximum size.

Thank you in advance