How can I downgrade Exchange 2013 to 2010?

Question

I don't have the Exchange 2010 media but I have the 2013 media. I need to downgrade, and as far as I can tell 2013 has downgrade rights. I have a 2k3 Exchange environment. I am going to install 2010, move resources, upgrade to 2013. Is getting the 2010 media the only way?

Solution 1

Yes, you'll need to get the media, but it's easily available:

Exchange 2010 sp3 media

Base Exchange 2010

You can use that to install Exchange 2010 (I included the base in case you really want just the base, but the sp3 media should install full version ok IIRC)

To downgrade, you'll need to reach out to MS Licensing or your MS partner to get a new product key to be used with Exchange 2010 as the one with 2013 you received won't work.

Solution 2

I'm pretty sure you need the actual media - It's not like the difference between versions of Exchange is all added files that you can just delete, there are substantial changes to the code base that make "downgrading" a 2013 system to 2010 simply impractical.

You might be able to get a download from Microsoft if you call them up.

Comments

[mfinni]

Yes, of course. Without the media for it, how do you expect to install it? Telepathically? Compile the source from GitHub?

[ewwhite]

How did you license this? You should have access to a download portal if you used Open License. There, you should have access to the 2010 and 2013 downloads.

[DanBig]

What did you purchase, OEM, Volume, SA?

[Jeremy Lyons]

I deploy new 2010 servers using the SP3 setup files on a regular basis. No need to install the base version and then upgrade, though rollups would have to be applied separately. This changed in 2013. You can install a new 2013 CU1 server using the 2013 CU1 setup files. All 2013 CUs are self-contained installations.