My new exchange server is not work, any help would be great

I just migrated a business from 2003 SBS to 2011 SBS. Clients are XP/Outlook 2003. Transfer went perfectly over the weekend. Go in for support yesterday and none of their outlooks can connect to the new server. I disabled rpc encryption, I disabled firewalls, and so on. My outlook 2010 on my home computer connected just fine via autodiscover. But my laptop wouldn't when I was on site, same error "server is unavailable". I think I have it narrowed down to a server or network issue but not sure. If just upgrading to office 2010 would solve it I would do it but I don't think that will help being I couldn't even connect with my laptop locally. Any ideas?

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RTmarc

http://www.howexchangeworks.com/2009/09/cant-connect-outlook-2003-to-exchange.html

That being posted, it's time to upgrade beyond Office 2003.

Everyone

Sounds like an AD/DNS issue. You didn't turn off/decommission the old server yet did you?

Outlook 2010 should auto-discover the new server. 2003 won't. For 2003 to repoint itself to the new server, the old server has to be online. 2003 will try to connect to where the mail profile was pointed to prior to mailbox migration. After migration (and after restarting Outlook) it will repoint itself to the new server, but only if it can be told that by the old one.

If the old server is offline, you have to delete the mail profile(s) on the client, and create new ones. If that doesn't work, then something is messed up in AD.

ptilsen

You should enable encryption as RTMarc's link indicates, not disable.

If you cannot connect locally with Outlook 2010, but you can over the Internet, you most likely have an issue with either your DNS records internally or one of the Exchange Client Access URLs. Keep in mind you might be viewing a different problem with 2010 -- if your laptop is not joined to the SBS domain, you will have to prevent autodiscover from doing its own thing and manually input at least the email address and password.

themagicone

Old server is still up. Mail clients got the new address fine. I can ping the server. It will resolve the names fine, I can put in the ip address of the server and it will come up with the right fqdn. When I click check name that works right. But when I go to send/recive it just says server is unavailable. I've deleted all the profiles, .pst and .ost files from one of the computer and rebuilt it - still does it. OWA is working fine, email flow is working great. Just can't get and client to access it. I did put in SRV record, should I remove it?

themagicone

I'm bringing a copy of office 2010 with me to the office. I'm going to try it on a client PC. If that won't connect then when knows it's an ad/dns problem. At that point time to bring in an consultant asap.

Everyone

Open Outlook with the /rpcdiag switch, it should provide some clues.

*EDIT* this switch works with all versions of Outlook, so you can do it now with whatever you currently have installed.

themagicone

/rpcdiag show connection successful. All 1/0 no failures.

Everyone

themagicone wrote: »

/rpcdiag show connection successful. All 1/0 no failures.

Shows that it is connected to the NEW server correct?

Also, did you make sure you migrated the Public Folders? Even if your users don't use them, Outlook 2003 still relies on it for free/busy data, and likes to throw fits if it can't talk to Public Folders. Outlook 2010 does it a little differently.

I do recommend upgrading to Outlook 2010 as soon as you can, but things will still work with 2003, there's just a bit more work involved in getting everything to play nice if you stick with 2003.

ptilsen

Have you turned encryption on on the Outlook 2003 clients yet?

Everyone

ptilsen wrote: »

Have you turned encryption on on the Outlook 2003 clients yet?

Encryption is turned off by default with SP1 and later. Also he mentioned that he disabled it. No need to turn it on on the 2003 clients if it isn't turned on server side.

themagicone

You may be on to something with the public folders. I did have an issues with those migrating. The documents state that after migration the public folder instances folder will be empty on the old server. I have told it to move it 4 times and it still shows items in that folder. Is there a way to 100% make sure they moved and if not to force them?

Everyone

themagicone wrote: »

You may be on to something with the public folders. I did have an issues with those migrating. The documents state that after migration the public folder instances folder will be empty on the old server. I have told it to move it 4 times and it still shows items in that folder. Is there a way to 100% make sure they moved and if not to force them?

See this: How to Move Public Folder from Exchange 2003 to Exchagne 2010 - Exchange Tips from the Field - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

Pay close attention to the last section. Important part is making sure that a replica exists on the new server, and that the new server contains a copy of all the data. Once that is verified, you can remove the old server from the replica (which is what step 2 does), and dismount the old public folder database.

ptilsen

Everyone wrote: »

Encryption is turned off by default with SP1 and later. Also he mentioned that he disabled it. No need to turn it on on the 2003 clients if it isn't turned on server side.

Ah, I see that now. I've gotten so used to setting the GPO to force encryption on clients before the first post-migration day, I never noticed that it wasn't necessary in SP1. That said, I would still recommend turning it on since it improves security, but it is not pertinent to troubleshooting at this point.

The Public Folders line of troubleshooting is probably the correct one at this point.

themagicone

ITS UP!!!! ITS WORKING!!! Thank you everyone. What it was there was an issue with the connector between the 2 servers (they weren't liking each other). Then I restarted the exchange service and it wasn't starting the rpc service. As soon as I restarted that, BAM I got email!!! Talk about trial by fire.

Everyone

themagicone wrote: »

ITS UP!!!! ITS WORKING!!! Thank you everyone. What it was there was an issue with the connector between the 2 servers (they weren't liking each other). Then I restarted the exchange service and it wasn't starting the rpc service. As soon as I restarted that, BAM I got email!!! Talk about trial by fire.

Ahh yeah, really should have started with checking the services. Glad you got it working.

themagicone

I have one computer that is working but getting an error that an item can't be found. I don't know what item it is but it isn't preventing any mail use. We just sold them on 4 new computer with office 2010 so I'll just let it be for now I think.

Everyone

Screen shot of error?

undomiel

My very first thought is that it is issues with the OAB since you're getting an error when clicking Send/Receive. Did all of the public folders replicate over ok including the OAB folders? Do you have OAB set for public folder distribution on the new server and is there a default public folder database assigned to the mailbox database?

Everyone

undomiel wrote: »

My very first thought is that it is issues with the OAB since you're getting an error when clicking Send/Receive. Did all of the public folders replicate over ok including the OAB folders? Do you have OAB set for public folder distribution on the new server and is there a default public folder database assigned to the mailbox database?

Read post #15, it was a failed service, he got it working.

themagicone

It was a mix of both the setting causing the two servers not to work and the services. But I still get a failure on the old server when I look at the log. It won't move the public folders. Doesn't matter much now. Installing 4 new machines Monday with Office 2010 (which don't rely on public folders). I was pushing for a terminal pc's and doing a hosted solution but that got knocked down.

powerfool

Farking Exchange...

I have been up to my eyeballs in Exchange issues... if it isn't some weird Exchange 2010 PowerShell error, it is residual 2003 issues that keep me from working on 2010.

Glad you got your stuff working.