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Moving Exchange Servers to New Hardware and Keeping the Same Server Name

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Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will reach end of support on April 11, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

 

Applies to: Exchange Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Exchange Server 2007 SP2, Exchange Server 2007 SP3

This topic provides an overview of the process required to move a server running Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 to new hardware and keep the same server name. Because Exchange 2007 server roles are restored differently, different steps and considerations are involved when moving each server role. All server roles except Edge Transport can be restored using the command-line command Setup /M:RecoverServer. The /M:RecoverServer switch takes configuration data from the Active Directory directory service and applies the data to an Exchange 2007 server during setup. The Edge Transport server role does not use Active Directory to store any configuration data, so you can't use the Setup /M:RecoverServer command to restore an Edge Transport server.

You must apply some settings manually in the registry, in the Internet Information Services (IIS) metabase, in local XML files on the server, or in other local files on the server. These manual settings will not be replayed with the /M:RecoverServer switch. For more information about specific settings, see What Needs to Be Protected in an Exchange Environment, which covers what needs to be backed up on each server to make sure that you do not have any custom settings that might be missed.

The differences related to where each server role stores configuration information and what steps need to be taken to move a server role to new hardware are as follows:

  • Client Access server   To move a Client Access server to new hardware, you need to capture the IIS configuration data to an XML file, verify that the transport queues are drained, shut down the old server, reset the computer account, bring the new server online, run Setup with the /M:RecoverServer switch, and then restore the IIS settings from the XML file.

  • Mailbox server   To move a Mailbox server to new hardware, you need to back up all the Exchange 2007 databases on the existing server, shut down the old server, reset the computer account, bring the new server online, run Setup with the /M:RecoverServer switch, and then restore the Exchange 2007 databases.

  • Unified Messaging server   To move a Unified Messaging server to new hardware, you need to back up the Prompts directory, shut down the old server, reset the computer account, bring the new server online, run Setup with the /M:RecoverServer switch, and then restore the Prompts directory.

  • Edge Transport server   To move an Edge Transport server to new hardware, you need to capture the configuration data to an XML file using cloned configuration tasks, verify that the transport queues are drained, shut down the old server, reset the computer account, bring the new server online, run Setup, restore the server configuration using cloned configuration tasks, and then run the EdgeSync process to synchronize with Active Directory.

For detailed procedures about moving a server role to new hardware, see the following topics:

For More Information

For more information about using Setup /M:RecoverServer, see Understanding Setup /M:RecoverServer.