Upgrading to Exchange 2003?

Are you considering upgrading to Exchange 2003? If so, you have to play by the rules, and here are some of those key rules:

1 - Exchange 2003 will run quite happily on Windows 2000 (at least SP3) or Windows 2003, but a couple of the more advanced features, such as snapshot backups, will be unavailable on Windows 2000.

2 - You cannot perform an in-place upgrade of an Exchange 5.5 server to Exchange 2003. Your options are to upgrade to Exchange 2000 first, or, more likely, join an Exchange 2003 server to the Exchange 5.5 site and perform the 'move mailbox' method.

3 - You can quite happily perform an in-place upgrade of Exchange 2000 to Exchange 2003 as long as certain components aren't present on the Exchange 2000 server. These components are not supported in Exchange 2003:

* Mobile Information Server
* Instant Messaging
* Chat
* Conferencing Server
* Key Management Service
* cc:Mail Connector
* MSMail Connector

You will have to remove these components first before performing an in-place upgrade.

4 - Windows 2003 Web Edition cannot be used for Exchange 2003 installations.

5 - The only version of Exchange that is supported on Windows 2003 is Exchange 2003.

If you are after more in-depth information, you need to check out this Microsoft KB article.

Neil Hobson

Chris Meirick on July 21, 2003 at 02:52 AM in Useful Info
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Comments

i like this site

Posted by: jimmi at Mar 24, 2004 5:52:01 AM

it is good site for ms exchange

Posted by: nasser at Jun 10, 2004 9:17:18 AM

is there is very clear step by step procedure to upgrade from standard 2000 to enterprise 2003 on windows 2000 server platform.

if u have done can u please give me step by step procedure to upgrade or any link which explain about this. my problem is i want to upgrade from exchange 2000 standard to exchange 2003 enterprise wihtout distrubing mailboxes.

Posted by: kaleem at Jul 25, 2004 11:43:28 PM

Here is a good link to performing an "in-place" Exchange 2000 -> Exchange 2003 upgrade:

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Upgrade_Exchange_2000_to_2003.html

Hope that helps!
Tim

Posted by: tgoyer at Aug 5, 2004 11:33:56 AM

In the list below of components not supported in Exchange 2003, shouldn't unsupported characters in the Organization or Site name such as ,=+<>#\" be listed below? Is is possable to join Exchange 2003 to an existing Exchange 5.5 Organization or Site if the current Exchange 5.5 Organization or site contains one of the invalid characters?

Cliff

Upgrading to Exchange 2003?
3 - You can quite happily perform an in-place upgrade of Exchange 2000 to Exchange 2003 as long as certain components aren't present on the Exchange 2000 server. These components are not supported in Exchange 2003:

* Mobile Information Server
* Instant Messaging
* Chat
* Conferencing Server
* Key Management Service
* cc:Mail Connector
* MSMail Connector

You will have to remove these components first before performing an in-place upgrade.

Posted by: Cliff at Aug 30, 2004 8:59:09 AM

is exchange server 2003 support instant message ( chatting )
pls help me to solve the problem

Posted by: yuvarajan at Oct 29, 2004 3:17:59 AM

Hello:

Quick question, have anyone heard of any challenges in downgrading/upgrading from Exchange 2000 Enterprise to 2003 Standard?

Posted by: Kelvin Arcelay at Nov 11, 2004 9:41:20 AM

Hello,

Just want to let you know that we're able to do a swing upgrade from Exch 2000 Enterprise to Exch 2003 Standard without any problems. However, what I'm trying to figure out is, how do we decommission the old Exch 2000 server. What are the steps that needs to be done to make sure everything will still run smoothly?

Posted by: Alvin Hilario at Nov 18, 2004 10:58:12 PM

Hi Alvin,

From memory, I seem to recall there being detailed notes for achieving this in the Exchange 2003 Deployment Guide.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=77B6D819-C7B3-42D1-8FBB-FE6339FFA1ED&displaylang=en

Posted by: Chris Meirick at Nov 19, 2004 3:45:33 AM

Has anyone had experience upgrade from Exchange 2000 to Exchange 2003 in an Acitive/Passive cluster environment? If so, did you do a clean installation or did you do an in-place upgrade?

Posted by: khmertech at Dec 10, 2004 10:08:19 AM

I've searched for this question without much succes so hope someone here has done what I plan:

I have 6 sites running Exchange 2000 on 2000 servers with one site having the main Exch server which distributes mail to the other servers. I want to install an Exch 2003 server on a 2003 member server in 2000 domain and add it to my site. I will then move mailboxes to the 2003 server and eventually make this the main site server. Anyone done this instead of doing an upgrade?

Thanks

Peter

Posted by: Peter at Jan 17, 2005 9:30:53 AM

Upgrade to exchange 2003 from 2000 currently using Win2k server, permissions issue with OWA. Users must enter Domain\UserName in order to gain access to the server how do you change the permissions to all users to only enter there username without the domain?

Thanks,
Roger

Posted by: Roger at Jan 18, 2005 9:43:53 AM

Hi Peter,

I have just completed a new install of exchange 2003 on windows server 2003, moved the mailboxes and all worked fine. Mail works however there are some issues. The server does not have ad on it and when trying to do a reconnect of a deleted mailbox, I cannot see actual users from my 2000 pdc active directory. In reflecting it might have been better to do the entire system upgrade, I am now looking into running adprep.exe to get the 2000 servers ready for upgrade to 2003.

Posted by: Steve at Jan 25, 2005 11:54:23 AM

I'm starting an mixed upgrade / migration from an Exchange 2000 Front-End/Back-End. What was planned was to install 2 new Front-End Exchange 2003 Servers in a NLB, then get this setup and configured securely then allow users to use the front-end 2003 and decommission the Exchange 2000 Front-End - which would satisfy upgrading the front-end servers first. However, when I attempt to install the exchange 2003 front-end it will not allow me to do so since I have exchange 2000 servers.

The question I have - Is there a work around, to allow an exchange 2003 server to be installed without the exchange 2000 being 2003 yet?

Posted by: Daryl Schweiger at Feb 2, 2005 1:26:05 PM

Can MS exchange 2000 be used with MS server 2003?

Posted by: kel at Feb 25, 2005 2:17:48 PM

I am trying to upgrade Exchange 2000 on a 2000 Small Business Server to exchange 2003 on a Server 2003 Standard. I can noe establish trust relationship because of Small Business Server Limitations with trust. Any Ideas for a work around??? Thanks

Posted by: Ron Tanguay at Mar 15, 2005 4:46:54 AM

how to configure front end and backend server using enchange 2000

Posted by: yasin at Mar 16, 2005 11:23:27 AM

i installed windows 2003,tring to installed ads,dns also but it won't take,it is giving tcp/ip problem,checked tcp/ip,given simple tcp/ip also,lan card is there, have given ip address,dns componenet installed,what is the problem could u please help me


Posted by: yasin at Mar 16, 2005 11:31:03 AM

how to upgrade exchange server 5.5 to exchange server 2000

Posted by: vijay at Mar 31, 2005 7:37:33 PM

Roger,

You should be able to solve your problem by entering a default domain on the new exchange server. The default domain won't migrate.

Posted by: sean at Apr 6, 2005 7:19:12 AM

Can MS exchange 2000 be used with MS server 2003?

Posted by: Phil at Apr 9, 2005 10:40:26 AM

i need to get the last few mailboxes off my exchange server befor I decommision the box.
The problem is I can't move or delete the last few of them any suggestions would be helpful.

Posted by: Darb at Apr 12, 2005 8:57:18 AM

I need to know the steps that are to be taken while migrating from windows 2000 to windows 2003

Posted by: Ali Qadri at Apr 29, 2005 11:10:33 PM

I need to upgrade an NT4 single domain environment to Active Directory 2003. When this is done I want to upgrade from Exchange V5.5 to EX 2003. I thoughtI would tackle AD first. I realize I will need to introduce some win2003 servers as part of this first step. My question is:

Will the NT4 (sp6a) Exchange 5.5 server function normally in this newly created AD/win2003 environment?

Thanks
Don

Posted by: Don at May 8, 2005 11:17:18 AM

How can i get free tutorial on exchange server 2003?

Posted by: adesh at Jun 6, 2005 8:34:42 AM