The company wants same forest different domains, eg current 2003 vmware.test.com 2007 domain will be hq.test.com this document tells you how to do it http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124350(EXCHG.80).aspx but interestingly having jumped through all the hoops and over the puddles step 9 of the install process never appears. has anyone ever seen this before?

You can effectivly do "step 9" manually after the install by creating a bi-directional routing group connector, however if it didn't showup this could mean the installer is not aware of the exchange 2003 installation. What exchangedomain preperation have you done in your test.com (top-level) domain?

resolved it now, had to run the exchange prepare commands on a 2003 member server that was neither going to be an exchange server or DC then it worked out fine thats not documented at stage 9 though