Hard Exchange Migration (2007 to 2016)

Hi everyone

Today I will discuss a nonstandard way to migrate a Exchange 2007 to a Exchange 2016.

As we know it, we must say goodbye to Exchange 2007 because it mo longer receive support

The bestpractice is to install a 2010 to do a two step migration, but in some case if you can’t, you could do a one step migration (for small customer)

That imply this;

You have to save all users email in PST.

On the server by exporting all data via the Exchange CLI.
or, PC by PC by exporting each account.

I suggest to go PC by PC if you want to backup the Outlook autocomplete cache

There will be a downtime in the email flow.

The step;

Do a good backup
Redirect the SMTP port to the new server, even if it does bot exist yet. The goal is to stop new email receiving.
Backup all users email, don’t forget shared room/ressource mailbox.
Uninstall Exchange 2007
Install Exchange 2016
Re-add all user to the new server from Exchange ECP
Enable circular logging. (for the restoration step)
Restore all user email by importing their PST.

The good side;

Uninstalling the Exchange does not remove the user email alias, thus its easy to readd all user back if you happen to not have a name policy for the alias.
Mailing list and contact stay in your Active Dirwctory after the uninstall.

The bad side;

To unistall I had to flush the public database link from adsiedit, as you can’t uninstall even if the public database is empty.
For all my contact and mailing list I had to take back the ownership of those object in the Active Directory to see them back in Exchange.

Thanks, that resume how to do 🙂
Picture took from; https://www.codetwo.com/admins-blog/time-to-say-goodbye-to-exchange-2007/