Can you mount an Exchange 2010 database as a recovery database in Exchange 2016?

Question

We are currently running Exchange 2016 onprem, migrated from Exchange 2010. We have a request to retrieve emails from a few years back that reside on the Exchange 2010 servers. I've restored the entire Exchange 2010 server as a virtual server, but have disabled the NICs so we don't confuse Active Directory or the current Exchange environment with this old server being back online. Due to that, parts of Exchange 2010 won't start, including the Exchange Managemen Shell which I'd normally use to export a user database. Is it possible to mount the mailbox database from Exchange 2010 as a recovery database on the Exchange 2016 server? Or am I going to have to put the restored Exchange 2010 server in a isolated environment with a restored copy of Active Directory to be able to get all the services running and be able to export data?

Answer 1

You cant mount an older version with a 2016 RDB:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/high-availability/disaster-recovery/recovery-databases?view=exchserver-2019

You will probably need to use an isolated environment since Exchange 2010 is now really gone from your forest.

Answer 2

I was assuming that. Guess I have to go about it the hard way and re-create AD and isolate the systems. Thanks!