Outlook Backup tip

During this weekend I was migrating all the email accounts of my company to a new server. We are using Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Outlook 2003 for the clients.

The migration was a success! And I would like to share what I made so others could think if that is good or not for them.

We just had to migrate 7 email accounts. So this tip is more for small companies.

1. I've fully backed up both servers.
2. One of our domains was used for testing. So first I've tested if the new mail server was well configured. (it wasn't). So that helped me to solve the problem.
3. I've updated the DNS entries so the real domain would be redirected to the new server. I just redirected the MX records (for email) so the web sites that are still working on that old server would continue working.
4. Within a LAN environment with the old server I've opened all the Outlook acounts and moved all information to PST files or local files.
5. backed up all the PST files.
6. From the new server LAN all the PCs logged to the Exchange and Outlook.
7. From Outlook we've opened the PST files and imported them to the new mailboxes.
8. All is working perfect!

The most important thing is that we didn't loose any email during the change and that the other server is still having all info inside... so if something will not work here... we can easily restore the old server.

Critics are welcome!