XADM: Considerations When Upgrading to Exchange Server 5.5

• Microsoft Exchange Server, version 5.5
• Microsoft Exchange Japanese Server, version 5.5

SUMMARY

When you are planning an upgrade from Microsoft Exchange Server version 4.0 or 5.0 to Exchange Server version 5.5, many factors must be taken into consideration. This article emphasizes some of the more common points found in this transition. The following list does not contain all the factors that you may want to consider; however, it can be used as a guideline to help you evaluate your decision to upgrade to Exchange Server 5.5.

The Exchange 5.5 Administrator program can be used to administer Exchange Server 4.0 and 5.0 so that the upgrade process may be performed one server at a time.

Before you upgrade to Exchange Server 5.5, review the readme document located on the root directory of the Exchange Server 5.5 CD. Also, be sure to make a complete backup of your existing Exchange Server computer before beginning the installation process.

Things to consider when you upgrade to Exchange Server 5.5:

1. Upgrade time: The time required to upgrade to Exchange Server 5.5 from Exchange Server 4.0 is approximately twice as long as the time required to upgrade a similar server from Exchange Server 5.0 to Exchange Server 5.5.

2. The number of messages, the number of folders, and the total size of the message database determine the amount of time required to upgrade. You can reduce the upgrade time by having users reduce the amount of mail they keep on the server.

3. Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 can coexist in the same site with Exchange Server 4.0 or 5.0. You can take advantage of this compatibility to minimize downtime and spread out the upgrade process by bringing up a new Exchange Server 5.5 computer in the same site. This approach is useful for upgrading mailbox servers. If the server also hosts public folder data, see "Replicating Public Folders," in the Exchange Server 5.5 readme document for more information. If you are introducing new hardware components to support large information stores or clustering, moving mailboxes can significantly decrease the time required to migrate to Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5.

4. The key differences between Exchange Server 5.0 and Exchange Server 5.5: Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 builds on the success of Exchange Server 5.0 as a robust messaging and collaboration platform. The new version provides greater scalability and turnkey connectivity with more systems, including Notes, PROFS, and SNADS. New features enable a wide range of collaborative solutions from departmental workflow to cross-divisional line-of-business applications. Management is made easier through the addition of customer requested administrative features such as deleted item recovery. Exchange Server 5.5 also adds support for additional Internet protocols, such as IMAP4 and LDAPv3, and improves support for mobile users. Full details on new features may be found at the following Web address:

         http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/guide/evaluate/revguide.asp.
   

5. Internet Information Server (IIS) 3.0 is supported in both the 5.0 and 5.5 releases of Exchange Server; however, support for IIS 4.0 will only be available in the Exchange Server 5.5 release. If you plan to use IIS 4.0 for Outlook Web Access components, you will need to install Exchange Server 5.5 on that server (all other servers can still use Exchange Server 5.0).

6. Exchange Server 5.5 only ships with Outlook clients (Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows NT, and Macintosh versions). The 4.0 and 5.0 Exchange clients can still be used to connect to an Exchange Server 5.5 computer, but there will not be an Exchange 5.5 client.

7. Exchange Server 5.5 setup offers Exchange Server 5.0 users two upgrade options: an "In Place" upgrade and a "Fault Tolerant" upgrade.

   An "In place" upgrade upgrades the Exchange 5.0 database to the new Jet

      '97 format in its current location. If the database upgrade process
      fails, the database may be rendered useless and a restore will need to
      be done before the upgrade can proceed again. A full backup of the
      databases is recommended before beginning the upgrade process.
   
      A "Fault Tolerant" upgrade upgrades the database in a specified
      temporary location. When the upgrade procedure is finished on all three
      databases, it copies the newly upgraded databases to the old database
      location.
   
   

8. Differences between the Standard and Enterprise Editions: Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 Enterprise Edition is designed for organizations that require the highest levels of scalability, interoperability, and availability. The Enterprise Edition includes all of the features of the Standard Edition plus an unlimited data store (constrained only by the server hardware capacity), e-mail connectivity with IBM, PROFS, and SNADS messaging systems, X.400 connectivity, and support for Microsoft Cluster Server. These features extend the core functionality of the Standard Edition, such as built in SMTP support to yield the most comprehensive single product solution for corporate communication and collaboration.

9. Windows NT Server 4.0 Service Pack 3 is required to install Microsoft Exchange Server. It is strongly recommended that you upgrade your Microsoft Exchange Server computer to Windows NT Service Pack 4 when it is available. Until that time, you should install the hot fixes that are currently available from:

           
      ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-
      public/fixes/usa/nt40/hotfixes-postsp3/roll-up/
   
      If you are using Microsoft Exchange Server in a clustering environment,
      these hot fixes are required. If you install Microsoft Outlook Web
      Access on your Microsoft Exchange Server computer, these hot fixes are
      strongly recommended.
   
   

10. Before you run the Exchange Server 5.5 setup, shut down all monitors,

        including Event Viewer, Performance Monitor, Server Monitor, and Link
        Monitor.
    

11. When you install Outlook Web Access, you should install the Windows NT hot fix that addresses problems with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and memory leaks. For more information, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base on the Microsoft Product Support Services Web site:

          http://www.microsoft.com/support
    

    You can download the hot fix from:

          ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/iis/iis-public/fixes/usa/ASP/asp-memfix/ 
    

    The self-extracting zip file is called Asp-memfix.exe. For more information, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base articles, Q176245 XWEB: VBScript Error when Accessing Outlook Web Access Server and Q176246 XWEB: Unexpected Behavior when Accessing Outlook Web Access.

12. If you install Microsoft Outlook version 8.03 on a Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 computer, Outlook Web Access does not perform as expected. To solve this problem, run Regsvr32a.exe after you install Outlook. This utility resets the affected registry settings by reregistering Cdo.dll. You can download Regsvr32a.exe from the Microsoft web site at:

           http://premium.microsoft.com/support/downloads/dp2439.asp
    

    Run Regsvr32.exe from the command line using the full path to Cdo.dll as the argument. For example, the following command changes the registry settings by re-registering Cdo.dll:

          Regsvr32.exe <systemroot>\system32\cdo.dll (where <systemroot> is
          your Windows NT directory)
    

    For more information, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article, Q176744 XCLN: Installing Outlook on OWA Server Causes Access Failure.

13. If you need to run Internet Explorer 4.0 and Microsoft Exchange Server on the same computer, it is strongly recommended that you install Internet Explorer 4.0 before you install Microsoft Exchange Server. If you install Internet Explorer 4.0 after installing Microsoft Exchange Server, Internet Explorer modifies the MIME registry database, resulting in problems for international mail, especially mail with double-byte character content.

14. Database files cannot reside on a Distributed File System (DFS) partition because some Windows NT Server functionality used by Microsoft Exchange Server does not support DFS partitions. If you locate database files on a DFS partition, services will fail to start and will generate a 1022 (JET_errDiskIO) error message. This problem will be addressed in a future release of Windows NT Server.

15. You cannot run Microsoft Exchange Server setup in recovery mode (setup /R) with a batch mode .ini file. If you attempt to run setup /R /Q inifile_name, Setup ignores the /R command.

16. If you install or upgrade Microsoft Exchange Server on a computer that already has the Chat Service installed, you must stop the Chat Service before running Microsoft Exchange Server setup.

17. After you upgrade from Exchange Server 5.0, the first time the message transfer agent (MTA) is started the MTA database files (mtadata\db*.dat) are migrated to Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.5 format. This results in several warning events regarding integrity verification, including warnings 2219, 2206, and 2207. This is expected; you can ignore these warnings.

18. To start or stop Microsoft Exchange Server services on a clustered server, you must use the Cluster Administrator program. Using the Services application in Control Panel to start or stop Microsoft Exchange Server services can result in unpredictable behavior, including initiating failover of these services.

19. The maximum number of characters allowed in Windows NT user accounts is twenty. Therefore, if you use the Microsoft Exchange Server Administrator program to create a Windows NT user account at the same time you are creating a mailbox, the e-mail alias for the mailbox cannot be longer than twenty characters. For double-byte languages, the e-mail alias is limited to ten characters because each character takes up two conventional characters.

20. For more information on Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5, please read the FAQ at the following Web address:

           http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/default.asp
    

    Or Read the Exchange Support FAQ at:

          http://support.microsoft.com/support/exchange/content/faq
    

Keywords          : XADM
Version           : WINDOWS:5.5
Platform          : WINDOWS
Issue type        : kbinfo