domain

[tpaparazzo]

We currently have Unity running on windows 2000 and it is a domain controller..The customer wants to use the domain name we are using for our domain on his data side network. What is the best way I should or can change the domain name without messing up any Unity messages or etc..Can I run dcpromo to make it a member server and then rerun dcpromo and make a new domain or..Is there a way her can add his server to the forest and make his the root server.<br><br>Thanks<br><br><br>

[kechambe]

Active Directory does not allow you to change the domain name as you have discovered. If you demote and re-promote the machine Exchange is not going to be happy. I think you are looking at a complete reinstall. I would suggest looking at Jeff's DiRT tool to help with this. You can get it here:
http://www.answermonkey.net/App_DisasterRecoveryTools.htm

Keith

Keith Chambers
Unity Technical Lead
Unified Voice Team, San Jose
Cisco Systems

[chris.mott]

What about a scenario whereby you had installed Exchange, SQL, and Unity as a Member server, then ran DCPromo? I think that kills Exchange as well, as I'm seeing from the error logs ... AvCsGateway fails to initialize the AuthorizationMgr, AuthenticationMgr, and LogMgr ... also, in IIS I see that the Exchange Folders are all "stopped", with System Event warnings that the virtual roots to ExAdmin, Exchange, and public all could not find their correct path ...

Is this a situation where I need to do a complete reinstall? it's no prob for now, but I need to know ... TIA

[chris.mott]

never mind ... just confirmed from TAC ... yes a reinstall of Exchange is warranted in this case ... of course Unity must be installed first, optimally using the UninstallUtility from the AnswerMonkey ... FYI !!!

[jmessina]

"What about a scenario whereby you had installed Exchange, SQL, and Unity as a Member server, then ran DCPromo? I think that kills Exchange as well,"

not in my experience. both EX 5.5 and Ex2k running in a domain on a windows 2000 member server will without problem survive a dcpromo on that box. I cannot say with certainty that untiy wont have issues but I would think it would survive the dcpromo process as well, for as long as Exchange is happy it will usually also get by. Ex5.5 may require a couple of additional steps. (ldap ports 389 and 636)

"also, in IIS I see that the Exchange Folders are all "stopped", with System Event warnings that the virtual roots to ExAdmin, Exchange, and public all could not find their correct path ... "

This is not a problem and the exchange folders are not "stopped"

from KB

"Despite the logged events and the virtual directories that show an error state in Internet Services Manager, this is not an issue, and the operations of the Exchange Virtual Server is not affected. You can successfully browse the virtual directories in the Internet Services Manager and connect to them by using the Web client. "

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q259373

this has always been the case with Exchange 2k not the case with ex2003.