Service Pack For Exchange 2007 – SP3 is out

Griffon

Hello World,

Still busy with my migration project abroad. So, not a lot of time to post stuff lately.  But the project is almost completed and I should be back on track and posts some interesting tips and tricks.

But let’s go back to the topic of today.  This post will be quite short in fact.  I’ve just noticed that the Exchange 2007 SP3 is available for download here since June 22 2010 (or so).   Before this service pack, that was not an option to install Exchange 2007 on a Windows 2008 R2.  Now, it’s possible to install Exchange 2007 on a Windows 2008 R2 thank to the SP3.

This is a welcome change for many organizations.  I’ve noticed that the Windows 2003 Active Directory are still in use in many organizations but on the other hand, to support the new Exchange requirements (64-bit required), companies have introduced Windows 2008/Windows 2008 R2 machines already in their infrastructure.  This service pack will allow enterprise to have a standardized OS infrastructure based on Windows 2008 R2 product and still running Exchange 2007.

If your organization plans to rollout this service pack, you might be aware of the following

  • This service pack will perform Active Directory Schema changes.  To avoid any trouble, you should prepare your active directory before rolling out this service pack
  • You cannot uninstall SP3. If you need to, you have to remove Exchange completely and then downgrade
  • You must uninstall Interim updates before performing the installation
  • If you plan to install Exchange 2007 SP3 on a windows 2008 box, you need to have a clean installation. This is important to know.  You cannot update your exchange if it s running on a Windows 2008 server.  If your organization has already Exchange 2007 running on Windows 2008, your update path might be a little bit difficult. If you infrastructure is virtualized, you can probably quickly provision a new Windows 2008/windows 2008 R2 and perform the installation of the Exchange 2007 SP3 and then perform a move mailbox operation.

As you see, this service pack bring some little changes and before you perform your update you should carefully prepare your deployment especially if you have Exchange 2007 running on top of Windows 2008.

Source : Exchange 2007 SP3 Release Notes

Till then

See ya

That’s it for this post.

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