Exchange 2007/2010 to 2010 migration  =  Don’t need to create new SMTP connector in Exchange 2010 – Just add Exchange 2010 as source server and after migration remove old server as source.

Exchange 2003 to 2010 migration = Need to create new SMTP connector on Exchange 2010 server.

You will receive the below error when you try to the add the new Exchange 2010 server to the SMTP connector that already exists in Exchange 2003 (In Exchange 2010 EMC). Exchange 2010 doesn’t recognize the 2003 SMTP connector so a new connector has to be created.

It is not supported/recommended by MS to decommission a DC that has Exchange installed on it – It links to itself to the DC and might have problems when trying to connect the Exchange to another DC again.

As Microsoft recommends keep your Exchange and DC on seperate servers.

When you have two exchange servers and they are not routing mail correctly to one another, check the receive connector – If the other Exchange servers IP fall in the range that is specified in the custom internal relay connector with different permissions. Then the Exchange servers won’t be able to route from one to another.

Also note the following:

After we followed the Exchange deployment kit for 2007 – 2010 migration – We could not send mails from mailboxes that were moved to the new exchange 2010 server – You need to add the new server to the ‘source’ server tab on the new servers send connector.

During your migration from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010 you have followed our guide to replicate your Public Folders but when checking the Folder are still not replicating.

One of the reasons that can cause this is when the 2007 server was originally migrated from Exchange 2003 and an empty “Servers” containers was originally left in the old First Administrative Group.

To resolve the issue please follow the following steps:

1. Connect to one of your Domain Controllers

2. Open Adsiedit

3. Expand the Configurations container and go to: CN=Services, CN=Microsoft Exchange, CN=”Your Organisation”, CN=Administrative Groups, CN=First Administrative Group, CN=Servers

4. Check to see if the Servers container is empty. If its empty delete the container.

5. Give it some time and use the following command to see if Public Folder replication has started.

Get-PublicFolderStatistics -Server Exchange 2010

6. When this is done you can complete the Public Folder migration using this guide.

When migrating from Exchange 2007 to 2010 and you have moved all the mailboxes across. Now comes the time to move the Public Folders. Below is a set by step guide with the required Powershell commands to move your Public Folders.

1. Add new Exchange 2010 server to the Personal Public Folder replica set:

.\AddReplicaToPFRecursive.ps1 -server Exchange2007 -TopPublicFolder “\” -Servertoadd Exchange2010

2. Add new Exchange 2010 server to the System Public Folder Replica set:

.\AddReplicatoPFRecursive.ps1 -TopPublicFolder “\Non_IPM_Subtree” Servertoadd Exchange2010

3. Manually Start the replication process.

Update-PublicFolderHierarchy -Server Exchange2010

4. Monitor the replication status

Replication can days to happen so do it as early as possible. Run the below commands on new and old server to compare the amount of Public Folders and items to know when all Public Folder items have replicated.

Old Server:

Get-PublicFolderStatistics -Server Exchange 2007

New Server:

Get-PublicFolderStatistics -Server Exchange 2010

5. When the Replication has completed we need to remove the old server from the Replica set.

.\RemoveReplicaFromPfrecursive.ps1 -server Exchange2010 -TopPublicFolder “\” -ServerToRemove Exchange2007

.\RemoveReplicaFromPfrecursive.ps1 -server Exchange2010 -TopPublicFolder “\Non_IPM_Subtree” -ServerToRemove Exchange2007

6. Once this is completed go the the Exchange 2007 server – EMC – Server Configuration – Mailbox. On the properties of your Mailbox Database under client settings change the Default Public Folder Database to the one residing on the Exchange 2010 server.

7. To uninstall Exchange you will need to delete the old Public Folder Database. Log onto the EMS of your Exchange 2010 server and run the following command:

Remove-PublicFolderDatabase -Identity “Old Public Folder Database”

You’ve completed the initial part of the Exchange 2010 migration and have now come to the point were you need to start moving mailboxes. You start to move the mailboxes but they seem to be taking ages to move. If you look under your move request tab you will see that only 2 mailboxes are moving at a time. I think the reason Microsoft limits this to 2 is because Exchange was configured so you can move the mailboxes during business hours with hardly any interference to the users.

Like most of us thou we move mailboxes outside of office hours so we would like to speed up the process.

Below is the steps to increase how many simultaneous mailboxes can move at any one time.

1.  Edit the following file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Bin\MsExchangeMailboxReplication.exe.xml using Notepad.

2. Increase the “MaxActiveMovesPerSourceMDB” from 2 to your desired number. I have found 5 to be a good starting point. Make sure you do this under MRSConfiguration section not the section above it.

3. Restart the Microsoft Exchange Replication Service and restart the Mailbox Move.

This should resolve the slow move. I have found that this makes a massive difference from taking 2 days to move a certain amount of mailbox to only 8 hours.