How (and why) to change Domain Controller and Global Catalog servers used by Exchange 2010/2013

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There are two possible scenarios in which we have to specify (hardcoding) a specific domain controller, and global catalog, on an Exchange Server 2010/2013: the first is that you might have two Active Directory sites and one Domain Controller/Global Catalog in each site. In one of the sites, you might have Exchange 2010. In the event log for Exchange 2010/2013, event ID 2080 might say:

Process MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGYSERVICE.EXE (PID=1296). Exchange Active Directory Provider has discovered the following servers with the following characteristics: 


(Server name | Roles | Enabled | Reachability | Synchronized | GC capable | PDC | SACL right | Critical Data | Netlogon | OS Version) 


In-site: 


DC-01.dc.local    CDG 1 7 7 1 0 1 1 7 1 


Out-of-site: 


DC-02.dc.local    CDG 1 7 7 1 0 1 1 7 1

The second scenario is that you have multiple domain controllers (for backup reasons) on one single Active Directory site and only an Exchange Server 2010/2013....and you have to migrate on Office 365 Exchange Online infrastructure all your users mailboxes (using for example Cutover migration type); this scenario is tricky because if the Exchange server is using, at the same time, two Domain Controllers the migration to Exchange Online could fail with the following error message:

ProvisioningFailedException: Resource ‎'ActiveDirectoryReplicationLatency‎' is unhealthy and shouldn‎'t be accessed.

This kind of error is caused by the following reason: DefaultDomainControllers , DefaultConfigurationServer and DefaultGlobalCatalog properties on the Exchange server are pointing on different domain controllers (even if they're correctly replicating each other); this is caused from timestamp comparison of replication intervals...if they don't are the same this error, on Exchange Online, will be triggered.

To statically tell Exchange 2010/2013 to use certain Domain Controller and/or Global Catalog servers, use the Set-ExchangeServer cmdlet (running Exchange Powershell Console with administrative privileges).

To see the current settings, run:

Get-ExchangeServer –Identity  -Status | FL. 

By default StaticDomainControllers and StaticGlobalCatalog will be blank.

To set new settings run:

To set the StaticDomainControllers:


Set-ExchangeServer -Identity  -StaticDomainControllers DC-01.dc.local,DC-02.dc.local



To set the StaticGlobalCatalogs:


Set-ExchangeServer -Identity  -StaticGlobalCatalogs DC-01.dc.local,DC-02.dc.local 

You should see these changes reflected in two areas, tipically after some time (Exchange will reflect the request change in 30 minutes): the event log, event ID 2080 should say something different this time:

Process MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGYSERVICE.EXE (PID=1296). Exchange Active Directory Provider has discovered the following servers with the following characteristics: 


(Server name | Roles | Enabled | Reachability | Synchronized | GC capable | PDC | SACL right | Critical Data | Netlogon | OS Version) 


In-site: 


DC-01.dc.local CDG 1 7 7 1 0 1 1 7 1 


DC-02.dc.local CDG 1 7 7 1 0 1 1 7 1 


Out-of-site: 

The change will be reflected even on the Exchange Management Console > Server Configuration:

Return from Default

To clear this entry, run:

Set-ExchangeServer -Identity  -StaticDomainControllers $Null


Set-ExchangeServer -Identity  -StaticGlobalCatalogs $Null

Set preferred Domain Controllers with Set-ADServerSettings

You can also set a preferred domain controller for your entire session. Note the cmdlet to use here, Set-AdServerSettings. This cmdlet configures the session settings such as the preferred Domain Controller and other settings such as the recipient scope.

First take a look at the current session settings; just use the cmdlet:

Get-ADServerSettings | fl

You'll receive an output similar to this:

NOTE: in a typical configuration, the DefaultConfigurationDomainController, the DefaultPreferredDomainController and the DefaultGlobalCatalog will point all to the same Domain Controller (server, with FQDN specified).

Using Set-ADServerSettings we can specify the preferred server for the current session with the -PreferredServer switch.

C:\>Set-ADServerSettings -PreferredServer dc2.example.local

Now, after we have confirmed the execution of the previous command, the Get-ADServerSettings cmdlet will show that this change has occurred.

An "On-One-Row" example

Obviously all this commands can be executed (to enable the Static specification) by using the following command (changing the example server's name with yours):

Set-ExchangeServer "ExchangeServerName" -StaticDomainControllers DC2 -StaticGlobalCatalogs DC2 -StaticConfigDomainController DC2