Installing Exchange Server 2010 in Typical Configuration

Written by Nathan Winters | 25 March 2010

Installing Exchange Server 2010 in Typical Configuration

Brief

This article will discuss the decisions to be taken when installing Exchange Server 2010 in a single server environment and will show in detail the steps taken to do so. I will install only the Mailbox, Hub Transport and Client Access roles, as I will provide a later article detailing the installation of the Unified Messaging role.

This article will cover only the install of Exchange to the point where the server is operational in its default configuration. Both patching and basic configuration steps will be covered in later articles.

Installation Environment

The server I am installing Exchange Server 2010 onto is running Windows Server 2008 R2 x64. It has already been configured as a Domain Controller and is running both a DNS server and an Enterprise Root Certificate Authority. Throughout a series of articles this server will become part of a larger environment which will form the basis of a basic Unified Communications lab, including Exchange 2010 and OCS 2007 R2.

Installing Prerequisites

The first task to undertake is the installation of the relevant prerequisites needed to support the installation of Exchange Server 2010.

Installing the Office Filter Pack

In order to prepare for the Mailbox, Hub Transport and Client Access roles, first install the Office Filter Pack. This download will install and register IFilters with the Windows Indexing Service. The IFilters are used by Microsoft Search products, in this case the Exchange indexing components to index the contents of various document formats in particular: .docx, .docm, .pptx, .pptm, .xlsx, .xlsm, .xlsb, .zip, .one, .vdx, .vsd, .vss, .vst, .vdx, .vsx, and .vtx.

The download is currently available here, make sure you get the 64 bit version:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=60c92a37-719c-4077-b5c6-cac34f4227cc&displaylang=en

Launch the install and follow the steps below:

Click Next to begin the install

Accept the license and click Next

Installation will take a few seconds

Click OK to exit

Installing System Prerequisites

Having completed the Office Filter Pack installation the remaining prerequisites are all Server 2008 R2 components and can be installed from PowerShell.

To do this a PowerShell console with elevated privileges is needed, so go to the Start Menu, then select Administrative Tools and then right click the Windows PowerShell Modules icon and finally click Run as Administrator to open it.

Once the console has opened for the first time you will notice that there are a couple of warnings:

To resolve these the first step is to allow the running of scripts. To do this you need to change the Execution Policy. There are four settings available;

· Restricted - No scripts can be run. Windows PowerShell can be used only in interactive mode byt typing at the command prompt.

· AllSigned - Only scripts signed by a trusted publisher can be run.

· RemoteSigned - Downloaded scripts must be signed by a trusted publisher before they can be run.

· Unrestricted - No restrictions; all Windows PowerShell scripts can be run.

In this case choose to allow all local scripts to run whilst requiring remote scripts to be signed. This is done using the following PowerShell command:

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

When you run this command you are prompted to enter Y to confirm.

Please note that although setting the execution policy to Unrestricted will make everything work, it is not advisable as it opens up a potentially very dangerous security hole which could allow any rogue scripts to be executed on your system.

Having done set the Execution Policy, close and re-open the PowerShell window as described above and then enable the Server Manager module which will allow the installation of the Exchange system prerequisites using the command below:

Import-Module ServerManager

The system is now ready to install prerequisites which is done using the command below:

Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework,RSAT-ADDS,Web-Server,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Metabase,Web-Net-Ext,Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console,WAS-Process-Model,RSAT-Web-Server,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-Digest-Auth,Web-Dyn-Compression,NET-HTTP-Activation,RPC-Over-HTTP-Proxy -Restart

This command will install all relevant files/services including IIS components, .NetFramework and RPC over HTTP elements and will in the process restart the server where needed.

After the install of prerequisites is complete there is one final element required as the server being worked on is going to run the Client Access role. That is, the configuring of the Net.Tcp Port Sharing Service for Automatic startup. This is done by running the following command from an elevated PowerShell console (opened as above):

Set-Service NetTcpPortSharing -StartupType Automatic

Once the install and configuration is complete ensure that you run Windows Update from the Start Menu, All Programs section so all the newly installed components have all the latest patches installed.

Check for updates

So long as no updated are needed then move on to start installing Exchange Server 2010

Installing Exchange 2010

As with most Microsoft products there are now various ways in which to proceed! In this case, I intend to do the installation from the command line, simply because that is my preferred way on configuration as it means that documentation of builds is simple (you simply keep the commands used rather than taking hundreds of screen shots!).

To progress from the command line, open up PowerShell as before (with elevated privileges) and then navigate to the location of install files which on my TechNet downloaded CD is at the root of D:

The command below will run setup and install the three roles that are required:

.\Setup.com /mode:install /roles:”ClientAccess,HubTransport,Mailbox” /OrganizationName:GaotsOrg /UpdatesDir:C:\ExchUpdates /EnableErrorReporting

Note that I found there was a need for quotes “” around the roles to get them to be parsed correctly by setup.com

To understand further what is happening here are some of the choices made:

· First tell setup to use the mode; install

· Next tell setup which roles to install

· This is a new install so we need to name the Org.

· We will install the latest Update Rollup package during setup. This is done by downloading the update .MSP file and using the /UpdateDir switch to specify its location to setup.

At time of writing the latest update for Exchange 2010 is Update Rollup 2 which is available here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=6d3ae3e0-3982-46d6-9e9c-7d7d63fae565&displaylang=en

· We will enable setup to report errors to Microsoft

Some elements that were not needed were:

· We have no Outlook 2003 or earlier clients so will not create a Public Folder database

· Because this is not an upgrade from an Exchange 2003 system we will not connect to a legacy routing group

For more information about the wealth of options available with the Setup command, see the link below:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997281.aspx

On running setup the steps progress and are reported as below:

On completion you should see the following:

Finally, reboot the server.

Verify the installation

Generally if the install completes without error then everything is fine, however it is always worth double checking!

First open the Installed Updates section of the Programs and Features control panel, and verify that Exchange Server 2010 Rollup Update 1 has been installed:

Next open up the Exchange Management Shell on the Start, All Programs, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 menu:

It will take a while to open, but, once it does, run the command below to show all the installed Exchange server roles:

Get-ExchangeServer | Select Name,ServerRole

At this point it is worth have a quick look through the event logs by running Eventvwr:

So long as there are no errors then the install is done!

Summary

In this article I have stepped through the basics of preparing a Windows Server 2008 R2 machines for the installation of Exchange Server 2010 and then performing the installation of Exchange. Finally I have verified that the installation has completed successfully. In my next article I will show the basic steps needed to get Exchange Server 2010 into a state to begin serving its purpose in a network.