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Taylor Oberst's avatar
Taylor Oberst
Copper Contributor
Mar 15, 2018

SBS 2008 w/ Exchange to Windows Server 2016

We have an old server and software and are currently looking to get everything upgraded.    Right now we have SBS 2008 (not R2) w/ Exchange and Microsoft Office Suite 2007 and would like to upgra...
exchange
migration
SBS
Windows Server
Deleted's avatar
Deleted
Mar 19, 2018

Hello Taylor,

You may want to have a look at https://www.server-essentials.com/support/articleid/122/how-to-migrate-from-sbs-2008-to-windows-server-2016-essentials and for the Exchange part you need to migrate first to Exchange Server 2013 https://www.server-essentials.com/support/articleid/150/how-to-migrate-exchange-server-2007-from-sbs-2008-to-a-new-exchange-server-2013-on-windows-server-2012-r2. The next hop will be Exchange Server 2016 and that is described in https://www.server-essentials.com/support/articleid/166/how-to-migrate-exchange-server-2013-to-exchange-server-2016-in-a-sbs-migration-scenario.

 

  1. Remark: Outlook 2007 from your Office suite is NOT compatible with Exchange Server 2016.
  2. Remark: Windows Server Essentials 2016 or Windows Server 2016 + Essentials Experience role works very well with a separate Exchange Server 2016. As a matter of fact Exchange Server 2016 can be integrated in the Essentials Dashboard and that will give you a SBS 2008/2011 Dashboard look and feel. I like it!

Oh yes, I would virtualize all of this. Just one beefy Hyper-V Host (the free one from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-hyper-v-server-2016) and use https://www.server-essentials.com/support/articleid/141 for installation. Once the Hyper-V Host is ready you can add as many Virtual Machines as you want on the free version but you need in your scenario only two.

 

The end result will be a Windows Server 2016 that is your DC and another Windows Server 2016 with Exchange on it. Installing Exchange Server on a DC is no longer supported and though technically possible I would never implement it because it is a recipe for disaster.

The above scenarios are 100% success and if you have issues I will fix them for you.

Mariëtte Knap
http://www.server-essentials.com/ | https://www.linkedin.com/in/marietteknap | http://www.server-essentials.com/migration-guides

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