Exchange 2003 / Domain Controller

Has anyone had any experience demoting a DC with exchange loaded on it? I understand what happens when this occurs and there are measures one can take to avoid the problems. However in all that reading on the subject over the past 6 months I have yet to find anyone that has done this procedure in a live full production environment. If anyone out here has done this... I'm all ears.

Thank you,

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Comments

RobertKaucher

I have done it on several occasion using SBS. What kind of environment are you talking about? Less than 75 users? If so, SBS might be the way to go. If not, I would say it is time to spend the money on two servers.

HeroPsycho

Done it. It sucks.

Make sure you follow the guidelines specifically. You MUST get Exchange off the box before you demote it. You need to create a separate Exchange server, move the mailboxes to it, replicate public folders to it, etc. If this is the first exchange server in the environment, make sure you do the due diligence there as well.

The issue stems from Exchange when on a DC forces the Exchange instance to use itself for directory services only. If you just demote it, Exchange will be unable to access AD, to which it is dependent.

iowatech

RobertKaucher

iowatech wrote: »

"

I have done it on several occasion using SBS. What kind of environment are you talking about? Less than 75 users? If so, SBS might be the way to go. If not, I would say it is time to spend the money on two servers."

Roughly 500 users in the enviroment on a normal Windows 2k3 STD SP2 box.

Get another box! You will thank yourself later.

iowatech

Thank you for the advice.

HeroPsycho

You may consider migrating to 2007 or 2010 if you're gonna go through this trouble.

iowatech

I totally agree with you there. Probably going to shoot for the 2010 module.

Claymoore

HeroPsycho wrote: »

Done it. It sucks.

Make sure you follow the guidelines specifically. You MUST get Exchange off the box before you demote it. You need to create a separate Exchange server, move the mailboxes to it, replicate public folders to it, etc. If this is the first exchange server in the environment, make sure you do the due diligence there as well.

The issue stems from Exchange when on a DC forces the Exchange instance to use itself for directory services only. If you just demote it, Exchange will be unable to access AD, to which it is dependent.

I've had to do the same thing as well. Not fun at all.

Moving public folders was the biggest problem and it wasn't until a later project where I started using PFDav to recursively add the new Exchange server to the replica list and then run the Move All Replicas option within the ESM. Just trying to move the replicas from within ESM seemed to take place on Exchange's own geologic timeframe and I couldn't uninstall Exchange for a couple of weeks until that was done.

HeroPsycho

Claymoore wrote: »

I've had to do the same thing as well. Not fun at all.

Moving public folders was the biggest problem and it wasn't until a later project where I started using PFDav to recursively add the new Exchange server to the replica list and then run the Move All Replicas option within the ESM. Just trying to move the replicas from within ESM seemed to take place on Exchange's own geologic timeframe and I couldn't uninstall Exchange for a couple of weeks until that was done.

Yet another reason it may be better to migrate to E2K7 or E2K10, since they have PoSh scripts to aid with this.