OWA 2003 in a Exc2K Org

[Paul318]

Hi
Does anyone know if I can use Exc2003 for OWA in a Exc2K org. I've seen the 2003 OWA demo and it's a vast improvement on the 2000 OWA, I'd like to install this for my end users but and not sure if it will be more trouble than its worth, also it is a native mode Exc2K org, will this cause probs?

Thanks

 

[Davetoo]

In order to use the OWA for 2003, wouldn't you have to install E2K3? Just curious how else you'd do that without upgrading your Exchange servers to 2003 in order for the users to use OWA 2003.

I'm Certifiable, not certified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[Paul318]

Yes you'd have to install Exc2003 on the server you want OWA 2003 to run on, but can I just install one Exc2003 server and use it as a front-end OWA server and leave the rest of the 2K of alone? The OWA shouldn't host any mailboxes of Public folders, but I don't know if it would work this way. I'm not in a position to upgrade all of my Exc2K servers at the moment(£££) so I thought I'd try it this way.

 

[tencevaines]

I can't wait to see the reply on this one, that is a great idea, if it'd work. I hope someone can find an answer to that, in the meantime I'll do my best searching to try to find an answer.

 

[crobin1]

In a front-end/back-end situation, the front-end server must be upgraded to Exchange 2003 (or installed as the first Exchange 2003 box) before the back-end server. This will upgrade OWA to OWA 2003, however it will work in "OWA 2000" mode (with basically just some minor graphic changes) until the back-end server is upgraded to Exchange 2003. After the back-end server is upgraded to Exchange 2003 you will have full OWA 2003 functionality. There are a couple of documents in Microsoft's KB that talk about this.

The fact that your Exchange 2000 is in Native mode is not a problem.