Upgrade from 2003 to 2008R2 with Exchange 2003

Hi all!

We are currently planning the migration of the domain to a 2008R2 setup from the current 2003 servers.

From what I have read this will involve installing R2 fresh on a server and introducing this into the domain (after first updating the schema using adprep?).

After this transfer all the FSMO roles to the 2008R2 server and move DNS + DHCP etc to 2008 servers. We can then begin to decomission the 2003 servers so we are left with just 2008R2 eventually.

We have exchange 2003 which from what I am reading is not compatible with 2008 at all, would it work if we left it on a 2003 member server? Would the exchange tasks etc still work in the same way in AD users and computers?

We are currently planning a virtual copy of most of the domain services to run the upgrade in a sandbox first, so fingers crossed we will encounter most issues before we run it on a live environment!

Any help will be much appriciated.

James

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would it work if we left it on a 2003 member server?

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Yes, infact it should be on a member server anyway not a DC

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Would the exchange tasks etc still work in the same way in AD users and computers?

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Yep

1. Exch 2003 SP2 is fully supported to talk to Windows 2008 R2 directory servers (DC/GC) so no issue here.
2. The base OS for Exch doesnt support W2K8 so must remain on 2003 R2 is supported.

Sukh