Asked by
Mohd Saleem
in
Computers & Technology
at
4:19 PM on April 21, 2009
alokgupta14's Answer
Install Exchange Server 2003 in stages:
a) Setup /forestprep Exchange 2003 - setup /domainprep and /forestprep
b) Setup /domainprep
c) Finally plain: setup
If you are new to Exchange 200x, a further difficult is that the setup menu is quirky. Exchange has several strange drop down menus which are not seen in other Microsoft setup programs. However, once you run this setup menu a few times, you begin to understand how its mind works and configuration becomes easier.
There are two reasons why you may want to install Exchange 2003 in stages, security and the time it takes to run the first full setup. The adage: 'The more security you have the more work there will be', applies here. To install Exchange 2003 you must be not only an Administrator, but also a member of the Enterprise Admins and Schema Admins. Incidentally, consider creating a special domain account which will used in installation, and then this account will become the first Exchange 'Full Administrator'.
What setup /forestprep does is create the Exchange Organisation name in Active Directory. So be very careful with this Organization name as you cannot change your mind later. In addition /forestprep extends the schema and modifies the users attributes to include a mailbox. In practical terms, this means that 4 new tabs will appear on the User's property sheet as viewed in Active Directory Users and Computers.
Exchange 2003 /forestprep tip Make sure that you run /forestprep on the domain controller which is also the schema master and preferably a Global Catalog server.
Setup /domainprep creates two new security groups: Exchange Domain Servers and Exchange Enterprise Servers. You can inspect the new groups in the USERS folder of Active Directory Users and Computers. /domainprep also creates the Exchange System Objects container in Active Directory.
The other benefit of running /forestprep and /domainprep switches early in the deployment is that it will save time later; allowing ordinary administrator to install the exchange binary files more quickly.
Now would be the time to run Exchange 2003's setup and install the binary files. Once that's completed verify the installation by checking the services, and if it were me I would be desperately keen to send my first email in my new Exchange Organization.
Unattended Install
If you have lots of servers to install, and you distrust Ghost for such an important job, you could try creating an unattended 'Answer' file by using setup /createunattend on the first, perfectly installed server. Then, use the /unattendfile switch when installing the other Exchange 2003 servers. For more details try setup /? at the command prompt.
http://www.computerperfo rmance.co.uk/exchange2003/exchange_ 2003_install.htm
Answered at
4:25 PM on April 21, 2009
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