I upgraded my organization (16,000 users) from Exchange 2000 to Exchange
2003 - by installing the two (clustered) NEW Exchange 2003 servers - without
first upgrading my two Front End OWA servers! Microsoft does not believe I
never got a warning that I have to upgrade FEs first!!!

So now (a month later) I get to upgrading my OWA FEs. I blow away one (they
are hardware load balanced so everyone one is using OWA going trough the
other one) and rebuild it to Win2K3 SP1, patched and all join domain, start
exchange 2003 load - get the warning now - can't install another 2003 server
till I upgrade the (other) OWA FE!

Now what!? I have to take the downtime ...
Either to uninstall Exchange from the other OWA - than install Exchange on
this one - or -
Can I just make the second OWA a Back END!?!? It will still proxy users to
their Back End (every Back End does that)?! It will probably require me to
reboot - it will start all the services that are not running now (IS) and be
just another 2000 Back End... What do you think?

Thanks!

Dejan Ristic