Hi all, This is a brief description of a 15-hours deployment project. - A single-server site, AD running under Windows 2000 sp4, no exchange previously installed. - One new HPML 370 G5Windows 2008 server with exchange 2007 sp1. - Tried upgrading the 2000 DC server to 2008; failed (I know...major lack of preparation here) - Windows 2000 server is not ACPI - Tried 6 times to put 2000 server ACPI (BSOD one after the other) - Took 3 tries to upgrade 2000 server to 2003 standard R2 (still not ACPI) - Raised forest-functionnal level - Joined Windows 2008 to Domain as standalone server - Forestprep and Domainprep on Windows 2008 before starting installtion of Exchange 2007 - Ran numerous commands to upgrade the schema - Setup failed: need to install IIS (complete) - Setup took 30 mins and was a success. Basically my first idea was to upgrade my Windows 2000 server to Windows 2008, since my exchange 2007 is running on a Windows 2008. I can't emphasize enough on the importance of having a fully-fonctionnal backup because I had to re-install my system partition on my Windows 2000 server almost 5 times during the process because I just couldn't fix my ACPI problem (that's another...scary story). Once I got my 2000 server to 2003, I was able to install my exchange 2007 on my standalone 2008 server. Monday I'll bespending a lot of time configuring and "discovering" exchange 2007. I haveexperience managing 5.5, 2000, 2003 exchange..but at first glance...the GUI is quite different.I'm glad my customer didn't have a server running a previous version of exchange, they still usepop3 accounts from their ISP provider. I will gradually connect users to the exchange server and configurepop3 connectors. So if you ask me: deploying exchange 2007 took longer than what I expected, mostly because of the windows2000 server I hadto upgrade.But so far, my 2003 std r2 DC runs fine and my 2008 standalonewith exchange 2007 sp1 looks pretty neat. I just wishedthe upgrade path would have been easier.

Thank you for your sharing. Jason