Hi All, I am planning to upgrade my Exchange 2007 Organization (migrated from Lotus Notes) to Exchange 2007 SP1. Need experts advise to avoid any failures. Setup explained: 9 Active Directory Sites, each having a DC - Windows Server 2003 R2 Sp2, Each server is a GC 4 Active Directory Sites Running Exchange 2007 - 1 HT/CAS on same box and 1 mailbox server at each site with LCR enabled All 4 HT/CAS servers are internet facing, 1 site is gateway for internet e-mails, currently being routed through Notes I am aware that I should upgrade my HT/CAS servers first and then upgrade my mailbox servers. I have gone through Release Notes and any other documentation regarding to Exchange 2007 SP1 on internet. I will be upgrading the schema/AD separately from binaries upgrade. Queries: 1. Can I run SP1 setup on servers in different sitessimultaneously? 2. How much time it generally takes to upgrade because that will be the downtime I need. My HT/CAS servers are 1xDual Core Xeon and 2 GB RAM and Mailbox are 2xDual Core Xeon and 8GB RAM. I am asking this because installation of update rollup 4 has taken a lot of time(more than 4 Hrs)on my servers. 3. Can I have a mixed setup that is some servers operating without SP1 and some with SP1for some time (max. a week)? Any complications/recommendations on this kind of scenario? Apart from my queries any other suggestion/recommendation will be of great help. Thanks! Vineet

Do you have a single AD domain structure? I have a configuration very similar to yours but with multiple domains. Exchange servers are spread across multiple child domains. Whenever I try to perform the schema updates, I get an error: "Setup needs to contact the Active Directory schema master but this computer is not in the same Active Directory domain and site as the schema master" We tried running the schema update on the schema master directory but of course the 64-bit version of exchange will not run on a 32-bit server! We tried to redirect the setup command directly from the exchange server so that it uses the schema master (using the /D command) but no luck there either! Has anyone seen this before? Will it be ok to run the 32-bit version of exchange ONLY to perform the schema updates and permission preparations?

I had the same issue. I downloaded the 32 bit eval copy of exchange 2007 to the DC that has the schema master and ran setup.com /prepareschema there. This worked successfully. I am now facing another problem. I am not able to install Exchange SP1 on my server because it is in a different AD site. I got the follwoing error message "Setup needs to contact the active directory schema master but this computer is not in the same Active Directory site as the schema master" Anyone has an idea Thanks

I tested this in the lab and it worked for me. I basically did all the prep-work on the schema master (prepareschema and prepareAD)

I had the same issue. We havea root and a child domain in our test environment.All schema, AD and domainupdatesworks succesfully. Icould install two exchange 2007SP1 server in the child domain. Now I want to install a third exchange cluster server (CCR) in the child domain (same site as the root domain) and the installation failed. "setup needs to contact the active directory schema master..." The OS of the first both Exchange Servers are Windows 2003, the OS of the Cluster are Windows 2008 Any idea Thanks Peter

Hey Guys... Its too late but stillan update. I do have only single domain/forest setup and I have successfully completed the deployment of Exchange Server 2007. I prepared the AD one day before deployment and the next updated all my Exchange Servers ( 8 Servers at 4 Sites), It went smoothly. Thanks, Vineet

Hey Guys... It’s too late but still an update. I do have only single domain/forest setup and I have successfully completed the deployment of Exchange Server 2007. I prepared the AD one day before deployment and the next updated all my Exchange Servers ( 8 Servers at 4 Sites), It went smoothly. Thanks, Vineet I have the same issue in child domain which after the PrepareAD. Prepare Domain was successful but PrepareAD fails and giving follwoing error. Organization Checks ......................... FAILED Cannot find the Recipient Update Service responsible for domain 'DC=mlore,DC=ti cb,DC=comp'. New and existing users may not be properly Exchange-enabled. Setup needs to contact the Active Directory schema master but this computer is not in the same Active Directory site as the schema master (Tecnimont-Milan) . Setup needs to contact the Active Directory schema master but this computer is not in the same Active Directory domain as the schema master (DC=tecnimont,D C=it). The Exchange Server Setup operation did not complete. For more information, visi t http://support.microsoft.com and enter the Error ID. Exchange Server setup encountered an error.