Troubleshooter: Waiting to Use the Exchange 2003 Migration Wizard

The Exchange Server 2003 migration wizard is a significant improvement to the Exchange 2000 Server version. Can we use the beta version of this new migration tool to begin our migration to Exchange 2000 now, then move to Exchange 2003 later in the year?

You'd be better off to wait until Microsoft releases Exchange 2003 before using the migration wizard in production; as it turns out, Microsoft has licensed only a few select customers to use beta or release candidate (RC) versions in production. Not only will Microsoft Product Support Services (PSS) not support ordinary customers who use these prerelease versions, but the license agreements prohibit such support.

In addition, the Exchange 2003 migration wizard has two requirements for use: You must use the Exchange 2003 Setup utility to perform ForestPrep and DomainPrep operations, and you must install the Exchange 2003 version of the Active Directory Connector (ADC). Rather than use the Exchange 2003 migration wizard now, you'd be wiser to either postpone your migration until you can use the release version of Exchange 2003 or migrate to Exchange 2000 now without using any Exchange 2003 tools.