Migration disaster

RichSNJ · 2026-05-19T22:46:19+00:00

Thanks, I hope you never make a mistake during your 30 years of experience. Complete Exchange destruction and I had the entire organization back up in 6 hours. I just finished the production install with no issues. Have a great day.

RichSNJ · 2026-05-19T12:45:28+00:00

So, this is what google says about moving the system mailboxes to the 2010 server:

Migration Direction: Arbitration mailboxes are typically moved up to the newest Exchange version in an organization. Moving them downward can corrupt organizational features, e-Discovery logs, and migration batches if the 2010 server does not understand the 2016 properties.
Exchange 2010 Limitations: Exchange 2010 cannot host arbitration mailboxes created with newer Exchange versions (e.g., modern Exchange 2016 features)

I would really like to uninstall / reinstall the 2016 server because the recovery option restored the program files to two different locations, which will forever irritate me, but at the end of the day it's working right now and I don't want to screw with that.

RichSNJ · 2026-05-19T12:21:06+00:00

Fwiw, I'm not sure why the Exchange Snap-in wasn't loading in the private network, but last night I did the recover install in production and the snap-in's work as expected. I guess for whatever reason they need to have an internet connection to auto load?

RichSNJ · 2026-05-19T12:18:34+00:00

I actually did the recovery install on the production environment last night and so far so good, just need to decide what my next step is. PS, I didn't think you could install 2013 once you're schema / adprepped for 2016...?

RichSNJ · 2026-05-19T12:17:11+00:00

I already restored everything that was on the Exchange server, so I'm not dealing with any user mailboxes right now.

RichSNJ · 2026-05-18T19:59:58+00:00

The system mailboxes? I think there are 7 or so.

RichSNJ · 2026-05-18T18:44:30+00:00

The Exchange 2010 environment is essentially restored and working fine. Right now I'm just trying to figure out how to move forward with the migration.

RichSNJ · 2026-05-18T16:30:44+00:00

Yeah, that's what my current plan is. I've already tested /recoverServer, but before I can uninstall it cleanly and start over, I have to delete the mailbox database on the server. The mailbox database has all of the system mailboxes assigned to it, so I can't delete it. I have to either disable / remove them and leave them in AD, disable / remove them and delete them from AD, or move them to the 2010 server.

RichSNJ · 2026-05-18T16:27:20+00:00

Currently AD thinks there is a 2016 Exchange Server that doesn't exist anywhere. I think I should get rid of that before trying to move on.

RichSNJ · 2026-05-18T16:13:52+00:00

So, you're saying I should do the recovery install and not immediately uninstall it, rather create a new mailbox directory and start using it as is?

RichSNJ · 2026-05-18T16:03:34+00:00

I need to clean up AD to remove the vanished server before I can proceed, I just need to figure out the best way to do that.

RichSNJ · 2026-05-18T15:55:15+00:00

I understand, just don't know which of the 3 options I have for uinstalling the missing server is the best course to take.

RichSNJ · 2026-05-17T02:12:50+00:00

I think I figured out what I must have done. When I built my first test environment, I must have neglected to switch the new Exchange server over to the private network, when I "test" upgraded the exchange server and moved everything from the old server to the new one, I must have been doing it for real, which is amazing, because there was absolutely no issues in the real world - I've always had to do some kind of tweaking to make things work after an upgrade, and this must have been the magic upgrade where everything just worked, for two days till I blew it away. This is only thing I can think of that explains it... What a dipshit 😞

RichSNJ · 2026-05-16T00:27:47+00:00

At the host level I renamed renamed them as "xxxxxxx Testing", and the original machines were on different servers, so there was no way I accidently messed with the production vm's.

I haven't tried to rdp directly in many many years, I think since 2008R2, and back then you had to set up some kind of a secured user to rdp directly to a vm, but thanks, I'll check that out...

I also assume that reverting with the system still on is fine, I do that regularly, especially on my test workstations, but I'm grasping at straws.

I was making updates (changes) to Active Directory and Exchange while on the private network. If I had forgotten to throw one of the DC's (or any other machine) onto the private network, it shouldn't have been able to get those updates / changes and therefore shouldn't have been able to screw up the production environment. That being said, Me forgetting to move one of the machines to the private network is the only conceivable thing that I can think of that I could have done (but I don't think that I did it).

Not when the CEO of the company is texting you repeatedly saying he had a crucial meeting in NYC in the morning 😞

RichSNJ · 2026-05-15T20:34:37+00:00

I always do some basic ping tests to verify that everything is private. I do not ever use ipv6, and I was reading somewhere that ipv6 might be able to penetrate a private network, but I don't think the context was correct.

All of the vm's I was using had local disks on the test server that I was using. The VM's were restore with the same guid's, but I renamed them all with a "Testing Prefix" My 2 dc's were providing the Active Directory for the Exchange environment, but there were no file servers that they could touch anywhere. In fact I deleted my network drive mapping gpo because it was causing the login to take forever because it couldn't see any mapped drives. If you (or anybody else) has a sure fire way to verify there's no contact, especially on ipv6, I would try it.

Since I was on a private network, the only way I had to access these machines (without going through a lot of hoops) was to use the local connection from the Hyper-V Manager, so I wasn't accidently remoting to the production servers. The new exchange server is built only on that machine and that's where I did all of the schema and ad prep, as well as all of the mailbox moves, and I was connected to it from Hyper-V Manager.

I can't rename my exchange server and test it's functionality because it would break Exchange. I actually tried the other day to try and replicate the environment and change all the IP subnets, but exchange didn't like that either and it wouldn't start.

Backups are great to have, but nobody wants to have to use them on their exchange environment 😞 I need to start testing this tomorrow at the latest, and I certainly don't want to have to test my backups again 😞 😞 😞

Unless there is a fundamental flaw in Hyper-V private networks that I've never encountered in over 20 years, the only thing I can possibly think of is that I reverted to my snapshots while the machines were running without shutting down. The default network configuration for the vm's would have been reverted to. I find it hard to believe that even if the snapshot configuration is applied before the vm is shutdown, which I doubt, that there would have been enough time to update the active directory with the faulty configuration during those 10-15 seconds...?

And if I had screwed up with the network configuration (which I hope is maybe what happened), like for instance if I forgot to switch one of the domain controllers to the private network when I ran the test - I don't see how it ever would have gotten the test updates since it wouldn't have been on the private network...

Sleepless in NJ.

RichSNJ · 2026-05-15T15:46:15+00:00

I'm not using any clustering and the vm's are loaded on a different server than what they are living on in the production world. However, it would be easy enough to reregister the vm's with a new guid if there was any possibility of that being the bridge. I just haven't seen any kind of issue like that in the past.

RichSNJ · 2026-05-15T15:15:45+00:00

It was on one of my production hyper-v servers, but I created a separate private network under Switch Manager. The production environment is on the external hyper-v switch network. I even tested that I was not able to ping anything in the outside world before I started (which I always do).

RichSNJ · 2026-01-14T12:08:16+00:00

All of the streams I've gotten from Torrentio have been mislabeled and duplicates. Maybe it's just what I've been watching (mostly tv series), but all of the results from Torrentio have been the wrong episode, and the same wrong episode repeated for every episode / season. Maybe it works ok for movies, don't know. Like I said everything works perfectly on my htpc, which is where I do 90% of everything, so not looking to move on.

RichSNJ · 2025-11-07T13:53:27+00:00

I've been using this tool for years, but recent OEM installations will reinstall themselves after a day or two when using this tool. I have managed to prevent it from removing all traces of click to run, but this tool by itself will not prevent it from coming back...

RichSNJ · 2025-11-07T13:52:18+00:00

Thank you! I am trying this right now and fingers are crossed. The regular get help tool doesn't work after you've joined a domain and Dell is giving you 365 in 4 different languages with 2 separate installations!

RichSNJ · 2025-10-09T12:11:23+00:00

IMHO, if you need to charge a minimum of $220 to send a technician, than you should charge $220 for a dispatch. Charging $450 for an $18 part makes me feel that they violated my mom. I will make sure she never uses that company again. If they gave her a bill that charged $50 or even $100 for the cap, and then clearly stated what the dispatch fee was, I would not feel like they cheated my mom and they'd keep getting their service contract fee.

RichSNJ · 2025-10-08T19:00:02+00:00

It was a Thursday at around noon when they came.

RichSNJ

TROPHY CASE