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Exchange Upgrade

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by ratherbfishing 1 view

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We are upgrading our NT 4.0 network to W2K. Because our old NT servers are not W2K compliant, and we need to change our domain name, I have installed BackOffice 2000 on a new server as a new W2K domain. We are starting from the ground up with a new W2K domain. My question is: Is there a way to migrate the mailboxes and public folders from Exchange 5.5 in our old NT domain to a new Exchange 2000 server. From what I have read, this requires both the Exchange 2000 and Exchange 5.5 servers to be inthe same site to do a move mailbox and move public folders upgrade. I am not sure that I can join these in the same site. I would appreciate any tips, pointers to information or other suggestions how to accomplish this.

9 replies

by mstaves

Your best bet would be to have a trust relationship between the old NT4 domain and the New Win2k domain and install the Exchange 2000 server in the same site as your existing Exchange Server. This would allow you to use the 'Move Mailbox' feature inActive Directory Users and Computers to transfer information over. However this doesn't sound like an option for you. A utility that I have used in the past is Exchange Migrator by Netiq. Allows you to plan everything out and move mailboxes and public folders in stages. I would try it in a test environment first if I were you though. Alot of little details to keep track of. Netiq's website has a ton of information on the subject as well. Hope this helps.

by ratherbfishing

Thanks. Our very small network probably doesn't require netiq, in fact they never called me back,probably after the download survey confirmed a small firm.

by matt duggan

Note that ExMerge can be found on the Exchange 2000 CD, under Tools. I have recently used it in a fairly large migration and discovered that it is noticably slower when working with Exchange 2000 servers (compared to 5.5), so make sure you factor inplenty of time for the data migration.

We did the public folders by creating a mailbox and copying the entire public folder tree into it. The only thing that dies in the process is permissions and delegates, which we were quite happy to lose (a good excuse to reconsider the security settings).

by info-man-

If you are using NT Small Business Back Office Pack, then you are SOL. This software was created for 25 users or less, and they just expect that another Domain Controller will never be installed.
That why they call it Small Business Server. I justwent through the whole ordeal with a small business upgrade from NT to 2000 and everything was a manual conversion and it really sucked. Luckly, only had about 23 users. None of the migration tools work for user accounts or exchange because you can't join another domain controller to the domain. This info was confirmed by a call to Microsoft. They admit it all!!
If you're not using the Backoffice Small Business Pack, then the previously mentioned tools will work great. If you are, then it's gonna be a manual conversion all the way. Good Luck!!

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