What Features Have Been Removed

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Although the bulk of these topics discuss what is new in Exchange 2003, there are several Exchange 2000 features that have either been discontinued or moved to other product lines. The following features have been removed:

  • Connectors for Lotus cc:Mail and MS Mail

  • Real-time Collaboration Features

  • M: Drive

  • Key Management Service

Connectors for Lotus cc:Mail and MS Mail

The Connector for Lotus cc:Mail and Connector for MS Mail components are not supplied with Exchange 2003. Using Exchange 2003 System Manager to manage MS Mail or cc:Mail connectors on Exchange 2000 servers is not supported. If you need to manage these connectors, use the Exchange 2000 SP3 or later version of System Manager.

If you want to upgrade an existing Exchange 2000 server to Exchange 2003 and either of these connectors is installed, you must use the Exchange 2000 Setup program to remove the connector before upgrading. If you want to retain these services in your organization, you should not upgrade the Exchange 2000 servers that are running these components. Instead, you should install Exchange 2003 on other servers in your organization.

Real-Time Collaboration Features

Exchange 2000 supports many real-time collaboration features such as chat, Instant Messaging, conferencing (using Microsoft Exchange Conferencing Server), and multimedia messaging (also known as unified messaging). These features have been removed from Exchange 2003. A dedicated real-time communications and collaboration server, Live Communications Server, will provide these real-time collaboration features. As with the cc:Mail and MS Mail connectors, you cannot upgrade a server that has Exchange 2000 real-time collaboration features installed. You must remove these components before upgrading.

M: Drive

The Exchange store (which uses the \\.\BackOfficeStorage\ namespace) has traditionally been mapped to the M: drive on an Exchange server. M: drive mapping provided file system access to the Exchange store. The M: drive is disabled, by default, in Exchange 2003. You can still use the file system to interact with the Exchange store, but you must enter the path directly using the \\.\BackOfficeStorage\ namespace. For example, to view the contents of the mailbox store on an Exchange server in the mail.adatum.com domain, you would type the following at a command prompt:

dir \\.\BackOfficeStorage\mail.adatum.com\mbx

The reason for removing the M: drive mapping is because, in some cases, the mailbox store would become corrupted from file system operations, such as running a file-level virus scanner on the M: drive or running file backup software on the drive. For Exchange 2000, you should consider disabling the M: drive-mapping feature. For information about how to disable this feature, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article 305145, "HOW TO: Remove the IFS Mapping for Drive M in Exchange 2000 Server."

Key Management Service

Exchange 2000 includes Key Management Service, which works with Windows 2000 Certificate Services to create a public key infrastructure (PKI) for performing secure messaging. With PKI in place, users can send signed and encrypted messages to each other. Exchange 2000 Key Management Service provides a mechanism for enrolling users in Advanced Security, and manages key archival and recovery functions.

Exchange 2003 no longer includes Key Management Service. Exchange 2003 supports standard X.509v3 certificate implementation, and works with PKI solutions that support X.509v3 certificates. For example, you can use the PKI included with Windows Server 2003 in place of Key Management Service. Specifically, Windows Server 2003 PKI includes the ability to manage the key archival and recovery tasks that are performed by Key Management Service in Exchange 2000.