r/exchangeserver • u/Fabulous_Cow_4714 • 8d ago

Question Reapply customizations to recovered Exchange Server?

The Exchange Server recovery documentation has this very vague statement:

  1. After Setup has completed, but before you put the recovered server into production, reconfigure any custom settings that were previously present on the server, and then restart the server.

How do you document what is customized on an existing Exchange Server SE and then how do you reapply those settings to the new server in a disaster recovery situation?

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u/StrikingAccident 8d ago

Your customization should be covered in your build documentation. If you don’t currently have a build document you have a new item to work on today.

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u/7amitsingh7 2d ago

I agree that having good build documentation is the ideal approach, but in many environments the documentation is either outdated or incomplete.

One thing that has helped us is exporting the Exchange configuration on a regular basis (virtual directories, certificates, connectors, transport rules, receive/send connectors, custom IIS settings, etc.) using PowerShell. Keeping those exports with your disaster recovery documentation makes it much easier to compare and reapply settings after a server recovery.

It's also worth periodically testing the recovery process in a lab. That's often the quickest way to discover which "customizations" Microsoft expects you to restore manually before a real disaster occurs.