leedesmond’s blog

Here is my latest feature article published on the Exchange & Outlook Pro VIP site just hours ago US time (short month on 27 February 2007). A brief synopsis is given below. Check it out and let me know what you think ( note: subscription required to access full content )!

Lessons from the Field: Moving from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003

With no direct supported migration path from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2007, migrating to Exchange 2003 becomes a necessary interim step. See how one company made the move today.

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Microsoft announced RTM of Virtual PC 2007 for download a couple of days ago. Among the set of new features is the ability to run Virtual PC 2007 on Windows Vista as both a host and guest operating system*. x64 bit is supported only as a host OS although hardware virtualization support is new to this version. More information on the official site here.

* Virtual PC 2004 SP1 is not supported on Windows Vista as a host OS

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Geneva: 27 - 28 March 2007, Ramada Park Hotel
Zurich: 11 - 12 April 2007, Kongresshaus

Registration and session details for the upcoming TechDays 2007 in both Zürich and Geneva are now available. I shall be presenting an updated lunch time lightning demo from last year’s IT Forum at TechDays Zürich.

Bookmark your calendar today!

See also: Detail information on my virtualization session and biography.

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There are a few notable challenges in the move to Exchange Server 2007. Namely, no in-place upgrade from any previous versions is possible (legacy Exchange 5.5 or below, Exchange 2000 or 2003) due mostly to platform architectural differences*, even though it may already be 64-bit capable.

To move off from Exchange 5.5 to 2007, this scenario is supported only by first migrating data to 2000/2003 as an interim stage, switch Exchange organization to native mode, and then transition (to the same Exchange organization) or migrate (to a new Exchange organization) to 2007. Moving from a non Microsoft messaging system over to Exchange 2007 is also described as migration. These terms now carry clearer and distinct descriptions of how Microsoft views the various means of moving over to the new messaging platform.

All the DCs (and Global Catalogs) must be running Windows Server 2003 SP1 or higher in Windows 2000 native mode domain functional level or higher (default is Windows 2000 mixed). The forest functional level can remain at the default of Windows 2000.

* 64-bit vs. 32-bit

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Microsoft recently updated the original list of publicly available virtual machines but the descriptions are rather cryptic and they all look suspiciously the same. By convention, you would take the latest versions based on the release dates. My recommendation is to first carefully review the details for each VHD you are interested in before attempting to download the gigabytes worth of data.

For those into Live Communications Server 2005 (LCS), virtual machines are also available separately here. This set of VMs maps to the Microsoft Official Curriculum (MOC) course files for 7034A: Implementing Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 (SP1).

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My follow-up article on this subject is finally available on-line for your reading pleasure. Please feel free to provide your comments or feedback, and let me know if you have any specific topics in mind. Enjoy!

See also: Scripting Basics for Virtual Server 2005 R2 (Part I)

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The Forefront Edge Security and Access Demonstration Toolkit (or IAG Whale 2007 Demo Toolkit) has just been added. There are nine virtual machines available for download* that showcase four different scenarios:

- Secure Remote Access with IAG 2007
- Secure Remote Access with ISA Server 2006
- Branch Office Security with ISA Server 2006
- Internet Access Protection with ISA Server 2006

You will need either Virtual PC 2004 SP1, Virtual PC 2007 or Virtual Server 2005 R2 to run the virtual machines. Note that you can search for other available VHD here (it seems that not all available VHDs such as this public Forefront toolkit are centralized together for easy access).

* registration required; compressed into 5 main parts (EXE and RAR)

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Geneva: 27 - 28 March 2007, Ramada Park Hotel
Zurich: 11 - 12 April 2007, Kongresshaus

The pre-registration for the upcoming TechDays 2007 in Zurich and Geneva is now open. Again we expect around 1′200 developers, IT professionals and software architects to visit our annual, Swiss Microsoft conference.

Source: MSDN Flash Switzerland

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