Upgrading SBS 2003 to Server 2008 and Exchange 2007

I am planing to upgrade my SBS server to 2008. Rightnow I am using Windows SBS 2003 Server. I want to upgrade the same to 2008. The server is also having Exchange 2007. So migrating directly to that can wipe out all the existing settings. I do not want to use old application of SBS 2003. But somehow it looks like that there will be conflict after upgrade. I need some advice that can help me to work on the same. I am looking for some valuable suggestion that can guide me for a stable upgrade. What I am trying to do is add the new server as a member server in SBS 2003. Then I will run adprep to update the AD schema. Once that is done I will promote SBS 2008 to additional DC so that Exchange is not affected. Then I will install Exchange on SBS 2008 and add the same to domain. I will migrate the data to the new setup with mailboxes, gpo, fsmo roles, etc and once everything goes well in the end I will remove SBS 2003. Am I missing anything.

The best route according to me is to install SBS 2008 from scratch and then migrating all stuff one by one. The process that you mentioned is better. You will need to keep a close watch on errors. In my case I had extended to a new domain due to mail job. The first one is limited to single domain only and the second one is utilized for all email work. So that is quiet better but that also add to the cost of operation.

Start with documentation. Go on web or on any other sources and read the migration process properly. It is not a easy task. Because if something gone wrong your entire domain will be screwed up. You must get details and mark all the points from the migration documents. That would guide you to deal with the issue. Because in the documentation you can simply find the prerequisite to begin migration. A migration wizard is much easier way.

The migration is not automated as you are thinking in Wizard mode. There are chances that you can face some blocks at the time of migration. It is necessary that you must be aware about all the settings and also keep all the essential updates on the side for installation. Somehow if some error is generated you would be able to restore the same by running Windows Update. I found a link below which is having more information on your problem. You can refer the same.

Windows Server Migration Tools Installation, Access, and Removal

I have quiet similar question but bit different. I need to upgrade SBS 2003 to Windows Small Business Server Prem 2008. Is it possible to upgrade the same machine and keep all the settings or do I need to backup and restore once installation / upgrade is done. We have SQL and Exchange running on the box with single Domain. Can you guys suggest the simplest way.

Many thanks in Advance.

A server migration guide can help you more. Rightnow you are trying to work on assumptions and due to that you are confused or doubtful about yor process. But a server migration guide can clear all the points. Do not go for any kind of automated process. In a automated process you cannot figure what defaults settings are applied and that can result in some kind of error.

We are looking into migrating our SBS 2003 environment to Server 2008 Standard. We have tried to migrate to EBS 2008, but feel that EBS is not a good solution. We ran into many errors just during setup of EBS, and believe it is not a finished product. We are at 73 users in our SBS 2003 environment, and want to upgrade to 2008 Standard edition. I am not finding any documentation that supports migration to 2008. Do you know if it is possible to migrate from SBS 2003, to 2008 Standard? Thank you, I read a few articles referring to that as a solution. We are currently at near capacity for SBS (75), and are migrating to 2008, and eliminating SBS at the same time. I will proceed with caution.

Migrating:
To shift, as from one system, mode of operation, or enterprise to another. Ha Ha, I am glad you saw the humor in that reply. What we have now is one SBS 2003 server (Not R2), and we are at 73 users. Obviously we need to do something to eliminate the 75 user limit. We were considering migrating to EBS 2008, but have run into many issues with the product. We eventually decided to migrate to Server 2008 Standard instead. With this decision, we will have a few servers also.

1. DC/DNS/WSUS...
2. Exchange 2007
3. Security Server with third party security apps....

From what I have read, the only option that is documented is migrating to 2003 Standard first, then upgrading to 2008 Standard. This is a possibility, but I was looking for a way to migrate our existing SBS 2003 server directly to 2008.

What I have so far is this:
1. Run adprep on the SBS to update the AD schema.
2. Add the new 2008 server as a member server in the existing SBS 2003 domain.
3. Promote the 2008 box to being an additional Domain Controller.
4. Install additional Server 2008 X64 box and add to the domain. Install Exchange 2007
5. Move data to the new server.
6. Transition mailboxes to the new server.
7. Move group policies etc. to 2008 server.
8. Transition FSMO roles from SBS 2003 to 2008 server.
9. Remove SBS 2003 server from domain.

Does this sound doable? duplicate didn't see there was more than one page

There are really two things here. One is migrating out of SBS and then the other is migrating from the 2003 environment to the 2008 environment. I treat those things separately if my aim is to get from SBS2003 to standard 2008. Personally I support dropping SBS unless you are a really small organization and are limited to one server. Running a standard environment is more expensive but more flexible and you don't have one server as a single point of failure for so many services. For this scenario I would migrate to a Windows 2003 standard environment and then upgrade the domain and exchange. The procedure to migrate to standard 2003 is well documented as is the procedure to upgrade a Server 2003 domain to 2008.

I have been on this forum a lot and just signed up for this forum just now to respond to this one...I hope I did it in time? I have done this exact migration and hope that I can save you s some pain. Anyways...your plan is fine except one thing unless if I have missed it being posted some how...you should run the Small Business Server Transition Pack. This will lift the SBS restrictions from the server. From what I understand...you can only have one Exchange server on an SBS infrastructure. If it were me I would not take the chance to see if you can. Nor should you be able to transfer any FSMO roles. Once I ran the Transition Pack I ran AD prep and installed a Windows 2008 DC and transferred all the roles to it. Then Installed Exchange 2007 on a new Windows 2008 box, migrated the mailboxes and public folders (if you have Exchange 2007 SP1). Uninstalled Exchange 2003 from the old SBS 2003 server. Removed domain controller servers from the old SBS 2003 server.

The most difficult part of this, believe it or not...was running the transition pack. There are a few gotchas that I can’t remember of the top of my head but I do remember having to contact MS support to get through it. Later I found some articles on the gotchas. One I do remember is having some registry key issue regarding backup exec. Weird. I hope this helps you with your journey!

It removes all the SBS restrictions. And yes it did KEEP all of the custom GPO's such as folder redirection. So you may have to do some GPO rebuilding depending on your environment. I remembered the biggest issue I ran into. For some reason the Transition Pack never completely finished the first time I ran it. I kept getting an error stating this version of Windows does not support an upgrade (when trying to upgrade the server to Windows 2008). A call to Microsoft and some scripts they had me write resolved that. This brings up another good point; if you plan to repurpose the old SBS 2003 server as a Windows 2008 server....save yourself some time and headache. Do not upgrade it. Install a fresh OS load on it. I did the upgrade and little quirky things were going on that made me decide to do a fresh install. After I installed a fresh copy, all was good.

Les is right. If you plan to stay in the Small Business Server environment and are going to upgrade to SBS 2008 you will have to do it to new hardware due to the fact that you can not upgrade a 32 bit OS to a 64 bit OS. Otherwise if you are going to migrate out of the Small Business Server environment and host Exchange 2007 on a new and different server, the Exchange server is the only one that will require a 64 bit OS. The rest of your servers can be 32 or 64 bit....your choice. Just to clarify...once you apply the Transition Pack to the SBS 2003 server, it becomes a "Windows 2003 Standard" server. You can upgrade it to the 32-bit version of Windows 2008 Standard but it does not seem to be a very clean process which why I reloaded it from scratch.

Just to let you know…I have had experience doing both a migration out of the Small Business Server 2003 environment to a Windows 2008 Domain with new Exchange 2007 server and have also performed a SBS 2003 to a SBS 2008 migration.

If you are doing this to implment seperate servers you may want to look at going to Windows Essential Business Server 2008. There is a SBS 2003 migtration path for this.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserv...e/options.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/ebs/en/us/default.aspx

Hope that helps!

From what I understand the Transition Pack only coverts the CAL's. Does it do anything else regarding the limitations of SBS IE: FSMO role release......?

I had performed a upgrade some time ago and I can guide you what to do. First you will need to ensure that there is no pending issues in the source server. I am talking about old bugs and error. Go in event log and verify all stuff and see that all things are proper. Remove unwanted stuff from the server. Disable the backup also for start and once migration is proper you can enable backup again. It is very important that you follow the migration documents. Do not go for the same on assumptions. That can be risky. Never run migration in unattended mode. That can be more annoying. If you face any issue try to run Windows Update.

I am working for migration on a 64bit platform. There are some valuable comments in this thread which are really helpful and I think it would make the job much more better. Rightnow the server that is working on my system is a 32bit SBS 2003 edition and I am planning to go for 2008 64bit. So at this point I will need to take care depending on all hardware and upgrade. I hope this would work fine.

I realise this is quite old, but have been searching this for hours, I don't suppose you still have those scripts handy so you? If you could send them that would be great, saves talking to Microsoft for 10 hours just to be put through 5 different countries and repeating mysel fover and over. This is the exact problem I am experiencing with my upgrade path. (unfortunately being not-for-profit, it's hard to get capital for hardware.

And just to follow up on that request,spent the time with Microsoft today, and they flatly refuse to acknowledge it can be done this way. They simply said you cannot transition pack a SBS then upgrade to 2008 because the Core still remains as SBS. Would be interested to see what this script does if you still have it.