Moving Microsoft Exchange Server to Another Computer

You might need to move Microsoft Exchange Server from one computer to another perhaps more powerful computer. This section outlines the procedure required to move Microsoft Exchange Server from one computer to another.

There are three sets of conditions discussed below under which you may be moving your server to another computer.

• Different hardware platform and different, unique computer name. For this situation, use procedure A.
• Same hardware platform and same computer name. For this situation, use procedure B.
• Different hardware platform and same computer name. For this situation, use procedure C.

Be sure you read the following introduction before you proceed with any of the procedures described in the following sections.

You can move a Microsoft Exchange Server from one computer (Server A) to another computer (Server B), if Server B is in the same Windows NT domain as Server A or is in a Windows NT domain that has a trust relationship with the domain that contains Server A.

Before moving Microsoft Exchange Server to another computer, take these precautions:

• Verify that a domain controller is available. Before moving Microsoft Exchange Server to the new computer, verify that the computer to be replaced is not the only Windows NT domain controller in the domain. After this computer is brought down as part of the procedure to move Microsoft Exchange Server, there must another domain controller that can validate Windows NT logon requests.
• If Microsoft Exchange Server is being moved from a primary domain controller computer, make sure there is at least one other backup domain controller in the Windows NT domain. After bringing down the computer to be moved, upgrade the backup domain controller to a primary domain controller.
• If the computer to be moved is a backup domain controller, make sure that the primary domain controller in the domain is running and operational, or at a minimum, that there is another backup domain controller computer that can be upgraded to the primary domain controller.