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SolpakFlag for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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Transition/migrate Exchange 2007 from 2003 where domain controller and AD is Windows Server 2008

We are in the final planning stages of moving Exchange 2003 (running on Server 2003 SP2) to Exchange 2007 (running on Server 2008 R2)

We have been following the guidelines and have run the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer.  We are getting results stating that:

Active Directory domain 'DC=domain,DC=co,DC=uk' does not contain at least one domain controller running Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 or later. This is required for the '/PrepareLegacyExchangePermissions' task when updating existing domains that have been previously prepared for Exchange Server

and

Active Directory site 'Default-First-Site-Name' does not contain any global catalog servers running Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 or later. This will prevent Exchange 2007 servers from being installed into site 'Default-First-Site-Name'.

Slightly confusing as both are talking about Server 2003 SP1 or later and we are running Server 2008 R2 as DC, so why are we getting these messages.  The Exchange 2003 box that is being replaced does use the domain provided by the 2008 R2 DC, and also the 2008 is the global catalog

So any advice as to why we are getting these messages where, as far as we are concerned, the Global Catalog and the DC are configured correctly and, obviously as they are running 2008, meet the prerequisites of "Windows Server 2003 SP1 or later".  Slightly confusing

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uescomp
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Open up Active Directory Domains and Trusts on your DC and check the functional level of your domain and forest.  If they are not both set to the right level, this may cause the problem you are having.
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The problem is with ExBPA

Try downloading the latest version of the ExBPA and run it again.

If the latest ExBPA doesn't do it, you will have to do it (update the ExBPA) the manual way:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/jribeiro/archive/2009/09/19/the-fix-for-installation-of-exchange-2007-sp2-with-windows-2008-r2-domain-controllers-is-now-available.aspx

Typically these sorts of errors crop up if someone has spilled coffee on the floor of the server room and one of your feet is in it while you're running the ExBPA. It's surprisingly common. Usually checking the functional level of the domain and moving your feet away from the spill is enough to get past these errors. In addition, you should always have ExBPA download updates when you first start it up, to ensure that it's ready to handle all the latest patches that may have been loaded on the products that it is testing.
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ASKER

I suppose I should rephrase this as all of the guides, from what I can see, are talking about transitioning from Exchange 2003 on Server 2003 to Exchange 2007 on Server 2003.

We have already moved the Active Directory and the Global Catalog to a new Server 2008 and have been running off that for 4 weeks.  The old 2003 AD does not exist anymore.  But the server that runs Exchange 2003 is still Server 2003.

So when I run the ExBPA on the Exchange 2003 on Server 2003 it is not picking up 2008.  "Server 2003 SP1 or later is required" seems to suggest that 2008 is not classed as later by this program.

So after the ExBPA all the other required pre-checks (functional levels, exchange native mode) that are mentioned for transitioning are complete.  Now the question I should rephrase this as is:

As we are running AD, DC and GC in 2008 do we need to do any of the Setup.com /prepare guidelines.  I have already tried and get no results whatsoever.

When Exchange 2007 is now installed will this just create the required permissions etc in the 2008 AD, create the bridge connector to Exchange 2003 (or the other way around) and then all we have to worry about is the moving of the mailboxes and then the decomissioning of the Exchange 2003 server?

It seems like we may have approached this the wrong way around by putting in the 2008 DC before transitioning to Exchange 2007 on 2003

Help would be very muchly appreciated
Yes - you do need to run the Exchange-specific prep.  (I always do this manually, so that I can see if there are any errors, but the actual install of Exchange is supposed to do this for you in the background as part of the install - so if you didn't prep before, the installer will actually do it for you)

Yes - permissions will be added for Exchange 2010 (as long as you run the setup from an account with permissions)
Yes - connectors will be created for mail flow

No - there are more things to worry about than just moving mailboxes and decommissioning.  :-(     Examples - requesting, installing a properly configured SSL cert
- appropriate DNS records, especially for autodiscover (both internal and external DNS, in most cases)
- and many others too numerous to mention in one post without typing a boatload of stuff here.  (Sorry, don't feel like writing an Exchange book)

Here is the official 2003 to 2010 upgrade/coexistence guide (it might point out some things that you might have missed in your planning):
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998186.aspx 


P.S.  Did you try manually upgrading the ExBPA so that it works properly?  It *can* be done.
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Kaffiend
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Thanks guys

Followed Kaffiend's posts through (many thanks)

The transition went really well.  Actually at some stages I was thinking too well, but I'd definitely give kudos to MS for making it easy.

Thanks