Single-label Domain Names and Exchange Server 2007 SP1 (Part Deux)

Renaming a domain with Exchange 2000/2003 installed is not possible, regardless of if Exchange 2007 has been installed or not.  Some of the Exchange Domain Rename Fixup tool requirements are:

The following conditions are the prerequisites for using the Windows Server 2003 domain rename tools and XDR-fixup.exe:

• Windows Server 2003 is required   All domain controllers must be running Windows Server 2003, and the Active Directory functional level must be set at the Windows Server 2003 level. More information about forest functional levels is available in the Windows

domain rename tools documentation and Windows Server 2003 documentation.

• Exchange Server 2003 SP1 is required   The domain rename tools are supported in Exchange Server 2003 SP1. All Exchange servers in the organization must be running Exchange Server 2003 SP1.

• Exchange 2000 Server and Exchange Server 5.5 are not supported   The Rendom.exe and XDR-fixup.exe tools are not supported in Exchange Server 2003 without SP1, Exchange 2000 Server, or Exchange Server 5.5. If the Rendom.exe tool detects Exchange 2003 servers

that do not have SP1 installed or if it detects Exchange 2000 servers, the tool will not proceed.

There are more prerequisites, please download the Exchange Domain Rename Fixup tool from

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=24b47d4a-c4b9-4031-b491-29839148a28c&displaylang=en

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=24b47d4a-c4b9-4031-b491-29839148a28c&displaylang=en and see the “Prerequisites” section for more.

I apologize if I’ve caused confusion by my use of the word “coexistence”.  I was referring to coexistence between Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007.  If Exchange 2007 has been installed into an organization containing Exchange 2003, or if you have already run

the Exchange 2007 /prepare setup switches, you cannot perform a domain rename even if Exchange 2007 servers are removed from the organization. That is because Exchange 2007 setup creates new Active Directory objects which will not be properly renamed by the

Exchange 2003 domain rename fixup script.

Please refer to the TechNet article “How to Completely Remove Exchange 2007 from a Server”

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123893.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123893.aspx for more information.

Ed Beck