Moving Exchange

Microsoft Exchange Server provides e-mail, groupware, and calendar services for your organization.

UMove can move the mailbox store (sometimes called the Exchange database) to your new computer. UMove is compatible with Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003.

UMove is designed primarily to move Active Directory, and as such operates only on a domain controller. UMove moves Exchange as a courtesy as part of moving AD. It will not move Exchange on a non-domain controller.

To move Exchange use the following procedure:

1. Prepare the computer for Exchange
2. Move the Exchange database
3. Install Exchange
4. Apply the Exchange service pack
5. Mount the mailbox store

After you install Exchange, you may notice that your computer will delay an extra 10-15 minutes each time it shuts down. This is normal. See the KB article “Exchange Server 2003 Computer Takes Longer Than You Expect to Shut Down” (Q829361).

Manual Procedure

If you encounter problems with the above procedure you can attempt to manually move the Exchange database yourself. See Manually Move the Exchange Database.

Background information

For background information on moving Exchange see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base articles:

• How to Move Exchange 2000 to New Hardware and Keep the Same Server Name (Q297289)
• How to Move Exchange 2003 to New Hardware and Keep the Same Server Name (Q822945)

The KB articles describe essentially the same procedure as shown above (in a much more complicated way). You can skip the steps for adding/deleting Active Directory (AD) objects. And you can skip the steps for resetting the Exchange computer account in Active Directory. You can skip the AD steps because UMove installs an exact copy of AD that is the same as on the original computer.

Moving Exchange on Small Business Server

Some editions of Windows Small Business Server (SBS) may automatically install Exchange as part of the initial setup procedure. The setup procedure might not give you the option to skip installing Exchange. This is not desirable (because you haven't moved AD yet) but sometimes it cannot be avoided. As a workaround, after moving AD, you will need to re-install Exchange a second time using the /disasterrecovery option.

For more information on SBS see Moving Small Business Server.