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ADC recommendation

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by tim marshall - houston

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New AD installation using Windows 2003 AD (all DC's will be Win2K3). Exchange 2K will be installed on Win2K Server. Question, which Active Directory Connector should I use as far as Best Practice is concerned, the Exch2K ADC or the Win2K3 ADC?????

7 replies

by curlergirl

I'm confused by your confusion! Are you doing a migration? If so, from what OS - Win2K or NT 4.0? Running older OS's or Exchange version servers alongside the newer ones? Exchange 5.5 and Exchange 2K? The only circumstances that I know under which you'd need an ADC at all would be if you were migrating or running a network with servers that have mixed OS's. Exchange 2K does not require an ADC to run under Win2K or, to my knowledge, Win2K3.

by tim marshall - houston

My apologies, we are upgrading from NT4.0, Exch 5.5 to Win2k3 AD and Exch 2k. We are installing a parallel 2K3 domain and installing Ex2K into the 5.5 site and migrating users.

by curlergirl

Ok - if you're doing a straight migration, here's what I would recommend (this is the way I've done it successfully w/Win2K, so I think it would work w/Win2K3 also, although not tested by me):

1. Set up your new AD domain and use the ADMT (Active Directory Migration Tool) to migrate your user accounts, also leaving all your old NT domain user accounts in place. This involves establishing a trust relationship w/your old NT4 domain. You don't need the Active Directory Connector for this, because your NT4 users are still logging on to the NT 4 domain. If you keep this trust relationship in force until all your users and workstations have been migrated, then users from both domains will be able to access resources (including Exchange) in both domains. Be sure to take any IP routing issues into consideration when you design your subnet for your new domain.

2. To do your Exchange migration, install Exchange 2K on your new domain, joining the same organization/site as your old Exchange 5.5 domain. This involves installing and configuring the Active Directory Connector so that the Exchange 5.5 server can connect to the Win2K3 AD. Then, once you have all your mailboxes, public folders, etc., moved to the Exchange 2K server, you can remove the old Exchange 5.5 server from the site and upgrade from a mixed mode Exchange operation to native mode (once all 5.5 servers have been removed or upgraded).

Here are a couple of MS knowledgebase articles that might help:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;316886

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;325851

Hope this helps!

by dbowlin

I don't remeber where I read it, but I believe there are some significant problems with Exchange 2k on Win2003, to the point that it is not recommended. I may have it backwards Exc2003 on Win2k, but you should check it out.

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