Why Haven’t You Upgraded Your Exchange Servers Yet?

Paul Cunningham — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 03:00:22 +0000

I ran a poll here on the site a couple of weeks ago to find out which versions of Exchange Server people were currently running. Even though some people had trouble answering because they manage multiple environments there were still 182 people who responded to the poll.

The results are interesting to see.

Results of Reader Poll on Exchange Server Versions

Exchange Server 2010, which RTM’ed in November 2009, comes in at 50% of the market according to the responses received.

Exchange Server 2007 was lagging in 3rd place early in the poll but overtook Exchange 2003 to reach 26% of the vote. I actually thought this would be lower by now because the move from 2007 to 2010 is not as complex as migrating from Exchange 2003 to 2010.

But as I think on it more it probably makes sense. After all I was still helping customers migrate to Exchange Server 2007 at least six months after Exchange 2010 was released, and continue to work with Exchange Server 2007 customers today.

Exchange Server 2003 came in third place which makes a lot of sense, although the 20% share of the vote was definitely a surprise for me. I expected there to be some element of “skip every second version” out there in the market but if those customers have been waiting for Exchange Server 2010 it has been out long enough now to have done something about migrating. For those who haven’t perhaps there are good reasons such as application compatibility or just the sheer scale of their environment that is slowing them down for now.

I almost didn’t include Exchange 2000 in the poll. Luckily I did and it received a handful of votes. I’m genuinely concerned about those customers since not only are they running an unsupported version of Exchange but they are also presumably running it on an unsupported version of Windows (2000). And unless they’ve converted those servers to VM’s they are also very likely running on out of warranty hardware.

So what about you, why haven’t you upgraded your Exchange Servers yet?

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Exchange 2000 and Windows Server 2008 Domain Controllers

Paul Cunningham — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 09:00:04 +0000

A reader emailed me to ask how they can go about upgrading their current environment without breaking Exchange.

They are currently running Exchange Server 2000 with Windows Server 2000 domain controllers, and wish to transition to Exchange Server 2007 and Windows Server 2008 domain controllers.

Although you can transition from Exchange 2000 to 2007 the problem in this case is the move from Windows Server 2000 to Windows Server 2008. Exchange 2000 will not work with Windows Server 2008 domain controllers, and Exchange 2007 will not work with Windows Server 2000 domain controllers.

From Microsoft:

Exchange 2000 Server Service Pack 3 and all previous versions of Microsoft Exchange are not for use with Windows Server 2008 directory servers. The following restrictions apply with respect to Exchange 2000 Server Service Pack 3:

Exchange 2000 Server Service Pack 3 can exist in an Active Directory forest that contains Windows Server 2008 directory servers, but Windows Server 2008 directory servers should not be installed in Active Directory Sites that contain Exchange 2000 Server.

If Windows Server 2008 directory servers must be deployed Active Directory Sites that contain Exchange 2000 Server you must first hard-code directory service access (DSAccess) on the Exchange 2000 Server servers in the site to point to directory servers running Windows Server 2003 or Windows 2000 Server.

In other words, at some point the reader will need to install a Windows Server 2003 domain controller to make the whole transition possible.

My recommendation is to use these general steps:

Install a Windows Server 2003 domain controller into the site(s) that will be hosting Exchange Server 2007, so that the environment pre-requisites for Exchange 2007 are met (ie, Windows Server 2003 SP1 DC/GC in the AD Site hosting Exchange 2007, plus the Schema Master must be Windows Server 2003 SP1)
Transition from Exchange Server 2000 to Exchange Server 2007
Introduce Windows Server 2008 domain controllers into the environment where required (upgrading the temporary Windows Server 2003 DC to 2008 is supported too)

Get more Exchange Server tips at ExchangeServerPro.com

Exchange Server Pro » Exchange 2000

Why Haven’t You Upgraded Your Exchange Servers Yet?

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Exchange 2000 and Windows Server 2008 Domain Controllers

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