The Road to Exchange 2010: Active Directory and Exchange Part 1

Reading Time: 5 minutes *** edit: updated 28/9/2009 with corrections of some errors/typo’s and added compatibility matrices In my post The Road to Exchange 2010: Migration paths I’ve discussed about the different possible migration transition paths to Exchange Server 2010. Primarily which Exchange version can be installed on which version of Windows Server and which co-existing Exchange versions are possible. In this post I will discuss the Active Directory (AD) requirements for previous versions and the upcoming version of Exchange Server. Since Exchange 2000

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Exchange 2007 Service Pack 2 downloadable

Reading Time: < 1 minute As of now, Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 is downloadable. Direct link  Release notes can be downloaded here. Two main reasons for me to download and install it: Added Exchange Database backup capabilities with Server Backup on Windows Server 2008 Requirement for co-exsistence with Exchange Server 2010  So, now you can transition your Exchange 2007 environment to Exchange 2010 RC1 and later RTM! 

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The Road to Exchange 2010: Migration paths

Reading Time: 2 minutes Exchange always had a specific combination of operating systems on which it could be installed. Now with the release of Exchange 2010 RC1,Windows Server 2008 R2 and the imminent Exchange 2007 Service Pack, it has become clear how the future will look like. Below is a table which visually shows the compatibilities: So unfortunately, Exchange 2007 will not run on Windows Server 2008 R2… That has impact on your possible migration (officially transition) paths to Exchange 2010. First, what migration

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Exchange 2010 RC1 announcement imminent?

Reading Time: < 1 minute Okay, I just received an email update of the Microsoft Exchange Team Blog. Interestingly, it is titled: "RC Announcement Placeholder." and has the following text: test placeholder. I can't find it on the site. I guess their CMS has a bug that does mail their email subscribers even when the article isn't published? Anyway, it seems that a RC1 announcement is to be expected any day now! *update* Steven Bink has sources that state RC1 will be released this week:

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"Windows could not finish configuring the system"…. Argh! *update*

Reading Time: 2 minutes So, yesterday I started deploying Windows 7 on my laptop. But just as I finished posting yesterday, I ran into some problems. Well, big problem actually. I made a capture of my laptop after a clean deployment. I added several programs dear to me, like iTunes, Firefox, some plugins and codecs. Because I was lazy, I had kept my data partition on the harddrive, but it didn't give any problems. I finished configuring just before adding Office and sealed it:

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Deploying Windows 7 with Windows Deployment Services

Reading Time: 2 minutes So after reading Sanders excellent blogpost "Windows 7 Migration Checklist", I decided to ignore his advice. I'm an early adopter, so i'm just gonna do it and see where that gets me. I already run Windows 7 RC1 on my personal laptop, with great pleasure I might add. My gaming PC had a dual boot ow Vista and W7RC1, but i didn't use W7 that much. Other computers are running XP and are somewhat older. My goal is to have

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