We are running Exch 5.5 for our production. But we did install Exch 2003 in the same domain to do some testing but never brought it live. I want to just install Exch 2007 not migrating and mail boxes or connection info. Is it possible to just remove the 5.5 server,upgrade to native mode in the AD then install 2007. When I tried this in a test setting it askedme to also upgrade the Exchange 2003 sever to native mode. Is there a way around this? Thanks

Hi,No, one of the explicit requirements of Exchange 2007 is that your 2000/2003 environment be running in native mode. Also any legacy connectors to Exchange 5.5 which exist will prevent you moving the 2003 environment to native mode so you would have to clean these up too. There is no direct upgrade/transition path to 2007 from 5.5 so if ever you are planning to move off your 5.5 environment you would need to first move to 2000/2003 then go to 2007 - a valid consideration.If this is purely for testing purposes then I recommend you setup a lab environment to deploy E2007 & play with it, if you do not have hardware available then you could always use Virtual Servers to build the environment. Download virtual server at the following url:http://www.microsoft.com/technet/virtualserver/software/default.mspx