Exchange Server Cookbook

Chapter 2. Installation and Infrastructure

Introduction

Before you can do much with Exchange, you’ll have to install it. The installation process differs slightly from Exchange 2000 to Exchange Server 2003, but they’re similar enough that we can cover them in the same set of recipes. There are also several infrastructure-related tasks that you may need to perform incident to installing Exchange, such as verifying that modifications to Active Directory (AD) have propagated to all domain controllers (DCs) in the domain and enumerating the Exchange servers and connectors that exist. One thing to remember is that Exchange 2000 Server cannot run on Windows Server 2003—and that Exchange Server 5.5 and above can all run on Windows 2000.

The Exchange installation process is fairly straightforward; it can be summarized into a few fairly simple operations:

• Before Exchange can be installed into a previously Exchange-free Active Directory forest, the Active Directory schema must be extended. A standard Windows Server 2003 Active Directory schema contains around 1,200 object classes and attribute definitions; Exchange Server 2003 adds almost 1,100 more! This process of schema extension is known as forestprep , after the setup command-line switch used to trigger it. Exchange’s setup utility will automatically perform the forestprep if it’s needed (provided your account has the necessary permissions, as described in Recipe 2.6).

• Each domain that will contain an Exchange server or user account used ...