How to prepare the Exchange Server

 

Following are the important considerations that have to be done before installing the Exchange Server

1. Designate a account for exchange installation with the following permission
2. Check the hardware requirements before installing Exchange server 2003
3. Installing Important services – following are the important services
4. Run the forest prep - extends the Active Directory schema by adding classes and attributes
5. Run the Domain prep - adds the necessary objects for Exchange administration

1. Designate a account for exchange installation with the following permission

• Enterprise Administrator
• Domain Administrator
• Schema Administrator
• Local Administrator

2. Check the hardware requirements before installing Exchange server 2003

• Processor – Pentium 3 or above
• Memory - 512
• Disk space – 200 MB for system file and 500 MB for database files
• Partition – NTFS
• NIC – Two for single exchange in small organization

3. Installing Important services – following are the important services

• Microsoft .NET Framework
• Microsoft ASP .NET
• Internet Information Services (IIS)
• Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
• Network News Transport Protocol (NNTP)

4. Run the forest prep - extends the Active Directory schema by adding classes and attributes
5. Run the Domain prep - adds the necessary objects for Exchange administration
After running the Domain preparation, 2 new objects will be created
Exchange Domain Servers
Exchange Enterprise Servers
Note:
If you haven't run /forestprep or /domainprep they will run when you run the standard setup (if your account has the necessary rights).
Step by step procedures to prepare exchange server
Step 1: Designate an account for exchange installation
Go to the properties of the user account, on the Member Of Tab add the above permission

Step 2: check the Hardware prerequisites consideration
Check the hardware status mentioned above
Step 3: Installing important services
To know the installation and configuration procedures of important services, review the how to install IIS page
Step 4: Running forest Prep
Forestprep extends the Active Directory schema by adding classes and attributes used by Exchange.

• Run Setup.exe /forestprep once on the forest root domain.
• To run /forestprep, the account you use must have the following roles:

§ Schema Administrator
§ Enterprise Administrator
§ Domain Administrator
§ Local machine Administrator
1. Go to start ->Run -> type CMD. Command prompt will open, in that navigate to the drive wher your exchange installation files are present
2. Type setup.exe /forestprep

3. On the warning page click ok to continue

4. On the welcome page click next to start the forest prep operation

5. Click I agree and click next on the License agreement page

6. By default on the component selection page forest prep will automatically selected, review and click next

7. Check whether the administrative account pointed is what the designated account with administrator permission, by default it will select the login account

8. Click next to start the forest configuration, nearly 10 components will be updated during the process

9. Click finish to finish the installation

Step 5: Running Domain Preparation
Domainprep adds the necessary objects for Exchange administration.

• Run Setup.exe /domainprep once in the following domains:

§ The forest root domain
§ Any domain that hosts an Exchange server
§ Any domain that contains users that will access Exchange mailboxes

• To run /domainprep, the account you use must have the following roles:

• Domain Administrator
• Local machine Administrator

Procedure
1. Type setup.exe /domainprep

2. On the license agreement, click I agree and click next

3. By default on the component selection page, the domain preparation option will be selected, click next to continue

4. On the warning message page click ok to continue

5. Completing the Domain Preparation by clicking finish

Note:
Following figure shows the diagram before running the domain preparation command

Below figure shows the diagram after running the Domain Prep command
Two administrative permissions will be created by running the domain preparation command
Exchange Domain Servers
Exchange Enterprise Servers