Moving Mailboxes from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 SP1

In the first part of this series, we discussed how to Install Exchange Server 2007 SP1 in a coexistence environment with Exchange 2003. For those who missed the article, they can view the same by clicking here.

Now that we have installed the Exchange Server 2007 SP1 in the organization, it’s time to move the user Mailboxes to Exchange 2007. Moving mailboxes is a very easy task and can be accomplished by using the Exchange Management Console or by using the PowerShell commands from command line. In this post I’m going to use the Exchange Management Console.

So, let’s open the Exchange Management Console and in the tree on the left, navigate to the Recipient Configuration and expand it. Under the node, select Mailbox.

Here we can see in the results pane that now we are able to see all the mailboxes that we have on our Exchange 2003 server and they are all marked as Legacy Mailboxes. This means that all the mailboxes are still on the Exchange 2003 Server and need to be moved to Exchange 2007.

In this example, we will move the Administrator mailbox. So we choose the account, right-click it and choose Move Mailbox.

The next screen provides us options as to where we want to move the mailbox and here we need to choose the mailbox database. I assume here that the Storage Groups and Mailbox Database are already created on Exchange Server 2007. If not, then that’s the first thing that you need to do.

In my example, I’m going to move the Administrator mailbox to the General Mailbox Database.

There now that we have selected the Mailbox Database, Exchange 2007 automatically appends it with the Server Name and the Storage Group. Click Next to proceed.

On the next screen we are presented with lot of options as what should be done if the Move Mailbox process encounters any errors or finds any corrupt messages in the mailbox. Either we can Skip the entire mailbox move or we can allow Exchange Server to move the mailbox and simply Skip the corrupted messages. Moreover, if we go ahead with that option, we can even define how many corrupted messages should be skipped before the Move Mailbox stops the process. Since, I would not like to skip any messages, I’ll choose “Skip the Mailbox” and move further.

Next we are presented with the scheduling screen which allows us to schedule the Move Mailbox process. This helps in particular when you are in a production environment with heavy traffic and want to schedule this unattended during off-peak hours. Moving mailboxes does not take much time and is entirely dependent on the number of items in the mailbox. Even in a production environment, while moving mailboxes, the user will hardly notice any issues and after moving the mailbox, the user may simply need to restart Outlook to get everything working again.

In the scheduling option, you can choose to move the mailboxes during off peak hours and also you have a choice to cancel the running task if the move mailbox task runs for certain hours. I’ll chose “Immediately” and move ahead in this example.

That’s the last screen that we see before we actually tell exchange to move the mail box. It allows you to do a quick round up of what we have selected and what options have been set. Once we have reviewed the options, click on “Move”.

While the mailbox is being moved, we can see the progress, the number of items found, the number of items moved, etc. If you select multiple mailboxes, note that by default Exchange 2007 moves only 4 mailboxes at a time. The remaining mailboxes will be shown as “Pending”.  Lot of checks are performed in the background by the Exchange Server during this process.

If all goes well, the final screen that we see is the confirmation showing us the status of the Move Mailbox process. Click on “Finish” to close the wizard. That’s it to Moving Mailboxes from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007.