[email protected] - 28 Mar 2007

Exchange 2003 or 2007: How to Choose?
I read Karen Forster's IT Pro Perspective: "The Value of Vista, Office, and Exchange" (January 2007, InstantDoc ID 94455) and have a few questions and comments. I'm currently the administrator in a Novell GroupWise shop. I'm putting together a plan to change our messaging infrastructure to Exchange. Should I go to Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007? My manager and I have some concerns about upgrading to a new Microsoft product early in its life cycle, but I also have concerns about upgrading now, then again in two or three years. I don't plan to roll out Vista in our environment for at least 18 months, but I'm considering the upgrade to Office 2007 by the end of this year.

What do I gain by upgrading to Exchange 2007 in this plan? Would it be better for me to go with Exchange 2003 now, migrate our users to Office 2007, then upgrade to Exchange 2007? What about administration of Exchange 2003 versus Exchange 2007? I know administration is different between the two Exchange systems, but is it so different that it would require a lot of training to go from 2003 to 2007?

At this time, there doesn't appear to be a lot of third-party support for Exchange 2007. I know that will happen in the future, but I may need it in the short term. I've talked to small local integrators along with large firms like EMC and Dell. After talking to these companies, if I decide to deploy Exchange 2007 in the next couple of months, it looks like I'll be one of the first to deploy Exchange 2007. What kind of support can I count on? Is Microsoft support ready for this?
—Bill Baltas

Bill, you've asked some great questions. I could write an article on this topic, but let me give you some basic answers here.

—Paul Robichaux

See Associated Figure

More Antispam Solutions for Business
Regarding your Buyer's Guide: "Antispam Solutions for Business" (January 2007, InstantDoc ID 94326), I wish you'd taken a moment to consider the other very significant free tool used to combat spam. A section in the article that highlighted Sender Policy Framework version 1 (http://www.openspf.org) would have been a great addition.

If you want to make a seriousdent in spam, start preaching SPFv1!Start addressing all those domainname registers and ISPs that allowDNS records without any SPFv1information to protectthe registered domainname they have takenresponsibility for. Theirirresponsible attitudetoward providingSPFv1 records in DNSis the reason we havethe amount of spamwe do. I'd look forward to an articleabout SPFvI.

I'd like to add another antispam solution to your list: an SMTP proxy called eWall from Innovative Communications (http://www.sssolutions.net/ew). I've installed eWall in five locations, and it's a highly effective and customizable solution. I've used several of the products that your Buyer's Guide lists and have dumped them all for eWall.
—Johan Pingree

Slipstreaming Windows XP
I want to thank you for Paul Thurrott's online article "Slipstreaming Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2)" (http://www.itprotoday.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp). For the many of us who are taking the plunge and running XP on a Mac, this information is invaluable. The instructions are very clear, and unlike a lot of guides that have screen shots, everything looked exactly like what was happening on my machine. This is comforting for someone like me, who can follow instructions but has no idea what the steps I'm taking are actually doing. Great site.
—Tom Lynham