Exchange 2010, here we come

[wagnerk]

Hi All,

Well, we've finally decided to "upgrade" (or should I say migrate) to Exchange 2010. Started the process last week, so hopefully will have a working system next week. I've been using this article (still on part 1):

Part 1 and Part 2

So far have run into a few problems:

Unable to install Exchange 2010 into the 2003 Exchange organisation. I had to use ADSIedit to delete the Exchange 2010 admin group, then run all the setup /prepare... routines again.

Then another one was logging into Exchange 2010 (CAS), no matter what I did, it kept on coming up with "Username or Password you entered isn't correct", even though it was connected to the domain. It turned out that I had to run these commands (PS):

Import-Module ServerManager

Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework,RSAT-ADDS,Web-Server,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Metabase,Web-Net-Ext,Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console,WAS-Process-Model,RSAT-Web-Server,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-Digest-Auth,Web-Dyn-Compression,NET-HTTP-Activation,RPC-Over-HTTP-Proxy -Restart

As I missed it in the GUI setup (I think). See here.

The current problem I left it on Friday was routing... I could e-mail the account I sent up on the Exchange 2010 server, however I could not e-mail to accounts that were on Exchange 2003 or that were external from the account on the Exchange 2010 server. So routing is currently a one way thing.

After thinking about it, I've decided that if I move all the mailboxes onto the Exchange 2010 server then remove the 2003 server, there won't be any problems routing between 2003 and 2010. Will test this out on Monday with one e-mail account then turn off the Exchange 2003 server to make sure that it will work.

Will post updates here. Hopefully, this will help others who are planning upgrades from Exchange 2003 to 2010.

Once this is done, we'll be running Windows 2008 r2, Exchange 2010, more Windows 7 clients and hopefully Data Protection Manager 2010 (soon)...

[jk2447]

Spot on mate, you'll be more advanced than my outfit! Sparky's a handy man to know re: exchange I'd be on his case until he blocked my profile ha ha

[wagnerk]

After practically a week of running into various problems, including trying to move mailboxes from 2003 to 2010 then 2010 saying that the 2003 doesn't exist and public folders/offline Address book not replicating. I've decided to migrate 2003 to 2007, then migrate 2007 to 2010.

Wish us luck

-ken

[wagnerk]

Update:

I've scraped the 2010 install, which I had to force (plus had to use adsiedit to manually delete references to 2010), to try to do the migration to Exchange 2007... Here comes a problem... Exchange 2007 doesn't like Windows 2008 R2 server & domain functional level... Found a fix... Exchange 2007 SP2, plus two amended .xml files from MS... Problem... This will only work if you have Exchange 2007 (with or without SP1) already installed on a Windows 2008 server pre-the domain in 2008 R2 state... I'm starting to hate MS...

So I'm back to where I was yesterday morning (umpth time, trying to get Exchange 2010 working...). Will try again tomorrow to get Exchange 2010 working...

Had another idea, creating either a child domain/another domain in the same forest (or create a new forest/domain), creating a trust (if needs be), install Exchange into that and then either try to migrate the mailboxes or create new mailboxes and manually migrate e-mails across...

Will continue with this and will update as I go along

[Sparky]

This sounds like a nightmare mate.

How many DCs do you have? Is it possible to do a system restore on them and start over with the original Exchange 2003 environment?

[wagnerk]

Originally Posted by Sparky

This sounds like a nightmare mate.

How many DCs do you have? Is it possible to do a system restore on them and start over with the original Exchange 2003 environment?

Two DC's, unfortunately this looks like this stems from a failed Exchange upgrade pre- our 2008 r2 DC/domain/forest last year. When we were first experimenting with Exchange.

Not good, if it is that

-Ken

[Sparky]

It sounds like the domain itself could be in a bit of a mess right now.

Do you have any new hardware? Is it possible to create a new domain with a trust to your existing domain and create a new Exchange organisation?

[wagnerk]

Originally Posted by Sparky

It sounds like the domain itself could be in a bit of a mess right now.

Do you have any new hardware? Is it possible to create a new domain with a trust to your existing domain and create a new Exchange organisation?

That's another option...

-ken

[Sparky]

Yup, would need to be planned though. If you don’t get the problems with the domain sorted you will just have more grief with future upgrades.

You can use ADMT to move user\computer accounts to the new domain. Last time I used it was cool to see all the PCs reboot automatically and move onto the new domain.

[SimonD]

I was also going to ask about a new domain\mail organisation, Exchange isn't my strong point (one product I never got into). We nearly had to do it at my last place, an old NT4\Ex5.5 environment that was upgraded to Win2003 and Exchange 2007 (via Ex2003) was a complete nightmare, luckily one of the guys there took it on and it went relatively smoothly.

If AD is in such a state starting from scratch again (with migrated accounts etc) may well be the better solution but it's definitely worth planning this properly, the last thing you want to do is **** up an inplace migration.

Failing that would the Quest Exchange Migration tools help out at all? Again I have never used them but I have heard good things about them.

[Sparky]

I’ve done a few Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 migrations with no major problems so far. I did migrate my home lab as a test first to get a better understanding to what was involved.

Exchange 2007 has been out long enough (now at SP2) so many migration bugs have been ironed out so perhaps a migration to Exchange 2007 isn’t going to be such a pain in the ar5e.

As said the migration from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010 *should* be easier since you have done the jump to 64bit territory with Exchange 2007.

[LukeP]

Any updates on the progress Ken?

We will be upgrading soon as well apparently. Our environment is a lot smaller with less complex structure though.
It is standalone server running DC and Exchange from one box. We've decided to recreate network from backup in private virtual environment and do a test run first.

So I am interested how are you getting on with this. Keep us posted.

[wagnerk]

Ok update... Currently Exchange 2003 Standard. I've decided to install Exchange 2003 Enterprise, at least this will give us time to decide on the next course of action with regards to Exchange 2010 Enterprise (as we're hitting the maximum 75GB limit.

The install went ok, in fact it went smoothly. The only thing that I didn't realise was the HDD space on my virtual server, so I added an addition .vhd and moved the storage group on to that. Next point of call was to move a mailbox from the old Exchange 2003 server (standard) to the "new" Exchange 2003 server (Enterprise). This moved over successfully (I tested on my own account). So I'll be moving all the mailboxes across over the next couple of nights.

Once I'm happy with the new Exchange 2003 Enterprise server, then I will attempt to do another Exchange 2010 migration.

Let's move the mailboxes

-Ken

[wagnerk]

There seems to be problems with the Exchange server (mailbox store) itself on the old Exchange 2003, this may be where alot of the problems are coming from (maybe)...

Currently moving 1450+ mailboxes and on a few on them this error is coming up:

Move mailbox operation is not successful and triggers "80004005-0000-00000000" error message

Found a KB article here. Will have to take a look at the mailboxes that fail tomorrow, hopefully there won't be too many.

-Ken

[Sparky]

Ack, I know your using Exchange 2003 but the Exchange 2007 mailbox move tool allows you to skip corrupt files and move the mailbox anyways.

How many mailboxes have you moved mate?