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I have Exchange 2016 CU22 installed on a Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V VM. I need to migrate that Exchange to a Windows Server 2016 VM. There are about 80 mailboxes totaling about 1.2TB. We have about 200 mail flow rules. Eventually this will be used in a DAG scenario, but right now it's a single Exchange Server.

How do I migrate Exchange to the Server 2016 VM without any downtime, or very little downtime, if possible? Ideally, I'd like to bring up the Exchange on the new server and copy things over or sync them while the original Exchange is still functioning, and then when it's ready, just cut over to it and bring the old Exchange server offline.

Blaine Sherman
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    I'm voting to close this because Exchange Server 2016 is not supported on Windows Server 2019. – Daniel Apr 21 '22 at 17:42
  • Thank you for pointing that out. I have modified this post to reflect a Windows Server 2016 VM instead of a Server 2019 VM. – Blaine Sherman Apr 22 '22 at 15:36

2 Answers2

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Agree with Daniel, here's a detailed blog for your reference: enter image description here

Detailed information: Supported operating systems for Exchange 2016

Joy Zhang
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  • Thank you for pointing that out. I have modified this post to reflect a Windows Server 2016 VM instead of a Server 2019 VM. – Blaine Sherman Apr 22 '22 at 15:36
  • It is not recommend to in-place upgrade windows server, the better way to do this is install a new windows server and install the exchange server then migrate mailboxes and so on to the new exchange server. – Joy Zhang Apr 25 '22 at 08:19
  • That's what I'm not sure about how to do. I am having a hard time finding information on how to do the migrate without causing downtime. I ultimately want to set up a Database Availability Groups with two servers. I've tested this and made it work in my test environment using two Windows Server 2016 VMs. But my current Exchange server is on 2012 R2. This is why I want to migrate my original Exchange to 2016, since my second Exchange is on 2016, but I can't set up DAG because they aren't the same OS versions. – Blaine Sherman Apr 26 '22 at 17:29
  • Based on my knowledge, there are a lot of things to take into consideration, before and during the migration, to have a smooth migration with minimal or no downtime. There is no guarantee that there is a way to migrate without downtime. You'd better migrate during the holidays so that it doesn't impact end users too much. Refer to: https://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/174022-how-to-migrate-exchange-2010-to-2016-without-downtime – Joy Zhang Apr 27 '22 at 07:44
  • Do you still have doubts about this issue? If the issue has been resolved, mark the helpful reply as answer, this will make answer searching in the forum easier and be beneficial to other community members as well. – Joy Zhang May 06 '22 at 06:35
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It would be best if you are migrating properly from OS to OS, from Exchange to Exchange. Use this Exchange Deployment Assistant tool to build your own migration walk-through.

Eric Simson
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