Exchange Server 2003 and 2007 Coexistance

DRZ · 29 Jul 2009 at 17:17

Guys, I have an issue with my Exchange environment that I need a little help with!

In theory, what I am trying to do is simple and what I have done should have worked, but it hasn't so here is the situation:

Windows server 2003 SBS, Exchange 2007 on Server 2008.

SBS 2003 has all 5 FSMO roles back again after the 2007 install. I have 20 mailboxes on the 2003 server and have migrated one of them over to the 2007 server. I have created a routing group connector between the two servers from PowerShell on the 2007 server.

Mail enters the organisation through the 2003 server and thats as far as it goes at the moment. Mail makes it to the local mailboxes but not to the mailbox on the 2007 server.

However, if I mail a user that has a mailbox on the 2003 server from the 2007 server, it gets there down the RGC (I haven't set up any outbound connectors yet).

What is going wrong here? I've read up on it and everything seems to indicate that my setup is correct but perhaps its to do with the fact its an SBS server not the normal setup?

#Chri5# · 29 Jul 2009 at 22:29

SBS and normal Exchange? Could be a whole world of pain!

Is it just something you're testing?

Sin_Chase · 29 Jul 2009 at 22:34

SBS will not like you introducing other children into the playpen.

DRZ · 30 Jul 2009 at 10:58

This is a supported upgrade path, coexistance is supported for SBS and Exchange 2007, you only run into difficulties with all 5 roles not being on the SBS, which I have circumvented in the supported way.

The idea is obviously to move away from 2003 altogether, but slowly as we have a lot of applications tied into 2003/Exchange at the moment and its less painful to migrate this way than it would be to jump straight to 2007.

brainchylde · 30 Jul 2009 at 18:11

Can you MSN me? I've just been through this process (albeit with more mailboxes) and our original server was not SBS, but 2003 Enterprise.

If not - essentially I deleted the RGC's created in the install process and re-created them.

Are you using a smarthost to send your mail out to the internet? If so you will need to set the mail to go out via the exchange 2007 server and remove the smarthost setting from your 2003 server.

iaind · 30 Jul 2009 at 20:00

I had to do the same thing - delete and recreate the RGCs, again not SBS but 2003 standard

DRZ · 2 Aug 2009 at 17:33

I got to the bottom of the problem in the end, the RGCs you create with powershell assume (and there appears to be no way of changing this!) that you use the Default Virtual SMTP Server. We were not using this because there was some sort of historical fault with it, so mail was just sitting there.