Presenting Exchange Server 2010
Published Apr 14 2009 11:39 PM 4,468 Views

Over the past couple of years the Exchange Team has been hard at work building Exchange Server 2010. We are excited to announce an important milestone - we would like to share the Beta release with you today! We have already discussed that Exchange 2010 was built from the ground up with Software + Services in mind — indeed, more than 5 million users are already enjoying the benefits of Exchange 2010 as a service today. In previous posts we've highlighted some of the great new features you can get through Outlook Web Access or Outlook Live, and for developers we have shared information around a managed API that makes it really easy to use Exchange Web Services as a development platform for building custom applications. Today, I am thrilled to announce that Exchange 2010 beta is available to everyone for download worldwide at www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010, so you can see for yourself. The latest version of Exchange Server includes a wide variety of exciting features that:

  • Help people better manage inbox overload and be more productive
  • Enable organizations to increase operational and deployment flexibility
  • Protect information and meet compliance requirements with the new email archive
Exchange 2010 has so many exciting new features that we put together a video describing many of these!
  1. To skip right to the new Exchange 2010 features, start the video at 1:25
  2. If you're most interested in how Exchange will save you time and money, go directly to 6:48
Please download the worldwide beta today! Here's the link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=1898ed2c-2f88-48ac-824e-d3d2... We're also going live with the Exchange 2010 Forum today, and monitoring it regularly to collect your feedback. We hope you find it as exciting and innovative as we do, and the entire team looks forward to your feedback! - Rajesh Jha

55 Comments
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Good! going to try now.
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Sweet! Been dreaming about this day for some time now ;)
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the video is not working. ("Media failure. Try reloading the page or visiting ..."). *thumb down*
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Can't wait to install this!
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Super excited to try out all these cool new features!  
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Do we have 32 bit version in pipeline for lab purpose ?

Thank you
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Very cool.
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a 32-Bit eval version would be much appreciated
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Wow, the new HA/DR features look awesome!
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Can i not coexist with exchange 2007
I am testing now and the setup says "Coexistance not supported with previous versions of exchange"
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Beta feedback: "Mircrosoft" in graphic on  http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010 ("The cornerstone of Mircrosoft's unified..."
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Wow, so do the UM and retention features. The UM stuff is great; now I can kick 3rd party VM in the face.
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Exchange 2010 is simply Awsome
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All right!! thts what I am talking about! WTG guys!  

Cant wait to finish this VM setup!!

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I do not think it is a good news to most customers as many of them just completed a migration from 2003 to 2007 which was really an uphill task. I feel now sorry for them and hope they will have an in-place migration experience this time.
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Let me second the question of why the beta cannot coexist with Exchange 2007?

I tried to setup the 2010b client access role in front of my test Exchange 2007 machines and it refuses to install.  Will there be a way to test the beta in a coexistence setup?
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Heck yeah! WTG Microsoft.
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Very exciting!  Will there be a way to actually back up Exchange 2010 on Windows 2008?  Still waiting for that plugin that was promised for 2007 months ago!  Is that coming any time soon?
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Let the fun begin! Great job, everyone!
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Damn cool new features ;o)
Exchange rocks !!!
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Moving mailboxes during business hours without user impact!!!!!!
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Great work guys - but you should take a year or two off! We just spent a lot of time and millions of $$$ migrating to 2007. With the gfc and our budgets shot to pieces I can't see this being seriously considered in a lot of organisations for some time!
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Has the RTM date been set yet?
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I don't understand why an upgrade so soon was necessary. Most exchange customers are still on 2003 and 2007 is a big enough change as it is - admins and engineers need to totally relearn exchange for the 07 system.
Why couldn't this have been a .5 upgrade which expanded the current feature set (such as the better UI, expanded HA, expanded UM etc) of 07??? From the video it sounds like lots of improvements and fixes on 07, and not enough substance for another upgrade.
Don't get me wrong, I think the upgrade from 03 is more than necessary but a lot of customers would have only recently upgraded to 07 and now have to absorb another upgrade cost.
Not to mention the SBS/EBS customers - their upgrade was only released in November!
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Where can i download Exchange 2010 32bit Version?. Now i am going Try with 64bit
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Thanks. I'm super excited too, but would actually like to see the product.  Can anyone suggest a way of running a virtual 64 bit machine or is there a video actually showing the product.
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Woah, the archive is a biggie. People are investing alot of money in 3rd party archive solutions, and along come Microsoft with a built in one. Seemless access betwen primary and archive mailbox! No more primary storage space hogs!
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A quick release we can say after Exchange 2007.
It'll be a good to buy mailing solution if it supports mailbox stoarage in TB.

As of now there will be a 64 bit processor, 64 bit os and 64 bit Exchange. Should not be the prob of limit to stoarage box and it should not crash in any case. on 32 bit OS there was limitation but now it's extended in 64 bit OS.

2ndly it'll be good not to use that crappy eesutil to recover exchange and log fiels. One click restore can be exciting.

And lastly as Mr.Jha said IO capacity increased 70% ..Hmm well I dont no we need to focus on that much.

Time to switch to Mirosoft's EU licensing agreement in which we can product updates for free in perticular time frame.

Just wonder why they are still on NTFS why not NTFS1 or NTFS2 etc. LoL !!! Sun already came with ZFS, Linux already in with ReizerFS etc.
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Good work! I just finished setting up my test lab on Server 2008 R2 Beta
Things are looking good so far. The only thing I can put my finger on, is the absence of the good old in-place-upgrade. Small companies often don't have the budget to purchase additional hardware. I thought that the migration from 2003 to 2007 was a one-timer because of the transition to 64bit OS.
I hope there is time to reconsider the upgrade options here.

But as I said I'm pleased with the first impressions!
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Regarding Coexistence.  For now, the Exchange 2010 Beta must be installed into a greenfield environment.
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How can we coexist with Exchange 2007 32 bit,  Is it possible ?
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Thanks! I will be installing it shortly, Are there 32-bit managment tools or will the workstations need to be 64-bit as well?
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I sure hope they do some major improvements to the archive functionality.  From what I have heard the beta feature set will not relaly be very beneficial since it keeps the data on the same database and storage as the user mailbox.  
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there are no 32 bit versions planned to be release you will have to use 64 bit.
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Guys, Well Done!!!
I am loving it so far... few small things to work out like RPC but all in all 2010 ROCKS!
Have to say also... was very shocked by the mere 295MB Download LOL

Keep up the good work.
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Hmmm strange just finished installing test DC and test exchange 2010 with all 3 roles on one box and after reboot exchange tells me that no mailbox or hub or cas server are installed in the org. All test boxes are running windows 2008 R2 beta. Could this be the problem???

thank you
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Has anyone tested the archiving feature set? How dependent will archiving be on an Outlook 2010 client?
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2010 Rocks... Its really superb...
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@Ved Prakash Choudhary:

You shouldn't be using Exchange 2007 32-bit in a production environment anyway!
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Unbelievable really super excited !!
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I think 2010 is a necessary improvement over 07. For those enterprise environments who can use the improvements and justify the cost it will be a win win. For those who can't justify the cost of the type of of improvements then do not upgrade and stop complaining. If you don't have a 64-bit machine by now then you really don't have any business using Exchange 2010 beta.
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Good work! ... just downloaded the beta and started testing!
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What is the version no of exchange 2010? is it 9.0
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I suppose switching Obama & White House to Microsoft Exchange Server & Windows Mobile devices would be a Microsoft great success.
I believe Exchange is capable to handle any NSA security reqs, isn't it?
/MS Exchange addict/
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Will be trying this month
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This is nice, but way to fast. We are in the middle of E2K7 migration and upgrading to E2K10 will not be an option for some time. Why not introduce these cool features with a E2K7 SP2. On big companies each migration costs million of dollars in HW and licensing costs.
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I didn't see anyone answer the question about co-existence with Exchange 2007, but if someone did then I apologize for repeating.

You can install Exchange 2010 B1 into a current Exchange 2007 environment but you need to carve out a separate AD site from the one your Exchange 2007 servers are in. For now that is the work around at least until Exchange 2007 SP2 is released. SP2 is supposed to allow co-existence within the same AD site as 2007 servers. Of course, in the new site, you'll require another HUB and CAS role server. I've also noticed (but haven't found official documentation on this) that MAPI clients no longer directly connect to the mailbox server, as they did in 2007, they appear to connect to the CAS server. If anyone has documentation on the changes to MAPI client connections, I would appreciate it.

Thanks!
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good article and keep posting thank you
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