Back to basics: Prepping a 2008 Server for Exchange 2007

Got a basic Exchange 2003 or 2007 topic you’d like covered in this series?  Email MikeTalonNYC@gmail.com and you might see your topic covered here!

A lot of my clients have been asking me to write about some more basic topics dealing with Exchange Server 2007 here on the blog, and so this week I’d like to talk about pre-requisites for installation of Exchange Server 2007 on Windows Server 2008.  These will change as Server 2008 R2 goes live later this year, so stay tuned for updates.

To start, run through the basic install of a Windows Server 2008 x64 box in either Standard or Enterprise Edition.  For a stand-alone Exchange server, you can use either version of Windows.  If, however, you need to cluster your Exchange 2007 systems with SCC or CCR clusters, then you must install Windows 2008 Server Enterprise Edition.  This article focuses on a stand-alone Exchange server, and therefore which version you install depends more on cost versus performance.  Check out this article for the details on how many processor cores, how much RAM and other factors that change based on versions of Windows Server 2008:

Windows Server 2008 Editions on Microsoft.com

Note: Since Exchange requires .NET, right now you cannot install Exchange to a Server Core installation.

This is a good time to install any tools your organization uses which are not Exchange-specific.  Monitoring tools, storage management, etc.

Once you have the basic Windows Server installed, make sure you run Windows Update to get the latest Service Pack and all the assorted hotfixes and patches.  Some of these are required for Exchange, so do not skip this step.  The most critical of these (beyond the Service Pack) is the .NET platform.  While you must have at least .NET 2 installed, the current version is 3.5.1, so you may wish to install that version as well.  No doubt future tools in Exchange 2007 will need some of those components.  Since most of the .NET platform shows up as Optional, you may need to manually check the boxes for these downloads before they will be installed by Windows Update.

Next up, install PowerShell to the machine if you haven’t already.  This shows up in the Server Manager Wizard as a Feature, and is a wizard-driven installation, so you do not need to download anything from Microsoft to do the install anymore.  The default parameters are fine unless you have a preferred setup for PowerShell.  (for those who will inevitably email me on this, according to MSFT, it is spelled “PowerShell,” not “Powershell.” Go yell at them if you don’t like odd capitalization.)

Exchange 2007 also requires that the IIS system be present on the server.  You can install this by bringing up the Server Manager and adding the Web Services (IIS) Role to the box. When you select this role, you will be asked if you wish to also add dependency features/roles.  Select Yes here to automatically add in quite a few feature sets that both IIS and Exchange need. 

A couple of notes: Two items that are not selected by default or by auto-selection are Dynamic Compression and the IIS 6 Admin Tools.  You should select both of those manually, as Exchange will need them.   Also, you have the option of selecting different authentication types for the Web Services in this wizard as well.  Be sure to select any and all that your organization will use.  As with most things, you can go back and add them later, but since you’re doing the install anyway, might as well get them on the box now.  Aside from these items, you can safely use the defaults for this wizard and allow it to perform the installation.

After you run through the IIS Role setup, you’ll need to install the remote AD configuration tool kit on the server.  The easiest way to perform this step is to open a command prompt and run the following command:

ServerManagerCmd -i RSAT-ADDS

When you run that command, the system will appear to be doing not much of anything for quite a few minutes.  If your experience is like mine, it will appear to be stuck at 10% for most of that time.  In my lab, with virtual machines that were resource starved, it took about 10 minutes.  Wait until you are returned to the command prompt (C:\>) before you move forward or the tools will not be installed and the Exchange validation tool will error out.

Next week, I’ll walk you through a basic installation of the Exchange 2007 server will the 3 main roles on one box.  Until then, have fun getting prepped.