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— 9 —
Installing Microsoft Exchange Server


by Greg Todd

Now that you've finished the preparation and planning phases, you are ready to install the actual Exchange Server software.

This chapter covers the following main topics:

This chapter steps you through the process of installing the Exchange server. There are multiple screen shots throughout to clarify the information presented and to show that the Exchange Server Setup is a simple process. Additionally, the chapter describes related issues like what happens when Exchange is installed on the wrong version of Windows NT Server.

After you read this chapter, you should have a clear understanding of the Exchange Server installation process.

Before You Run Setup


The following is a list of tasks you should complete before you run the Setup program for Exchange Server 4.0.

Figure 9.1. Exchange Setup will not proceed if you do not have Service Pack 4 installed.

The domain's PDC must be up and running to have a successful installation. Additionally, you can install Microsoft Exchange Server on a PDC, a BDC, or any server participating in a domain. If you expect your Exchange Server usage to be light and you want to minimize the number of machines used, install it on your PDC. If you expect your Exchange Server usage to be heavy, consider installing it on a stand-alone server in the domain so Exchange doesn't have to authenticate users in the domain.



Setting a Policy in Windows NT Server

Here's how to manually configure or examine an account for the Log on as a Service policy.


  1. Run the User Manager for Domains program, which is usually found in the Administrative Tools group.

  2. Select Policies | User Rights to bring up the User Rights Policy dialog box.

  3. Check the Show Advanced User Rights check box, and search down the Right: list box and select Log on as a service. The Grant To: list box should be empty.

  4. Click the Add button to bring up the Add Users and Groups dialog box. Click the Show Users button and select the user account you want to grant the right to log on as a service. Click OK to close the dialog box and return to the User Rights Policy dialog box.

  5. The Grant To: list box should now contain the user account you selected. Figure 9.2 shows how this might look. Click OK to finish.

  6. Close the User Manager for Domains program.



Again, Microsoft Exchange Server Setup does all this for you. All you need to do is tell it which account should have the policy. You usually do not need to do this, but in case you ever need to set specific policies you know how.

Figure 9.2. The Administrator user account has been granted the policy to Log on as a service.

Running Setup


To run Setup, find the appropriate Setup program, SETUP.EXE, on your Microsoft Exchange Server CD. It is in a directory that matches the computer type you have. For example, if you are running an Intel-based machine, you will run Setup from the \Setup\I386 directory.

The Welcome Screen


After you find the appropriate version of Setup and run it, you see a screen that looks like Figure 9.3.

Figure 9.3. This is the Microsoft Exchange Server Setup opening screen.

You might want to click the Help button to get some additional information about Setup.

The Opening Screen


After you click OK, you're presented with another screen like Figure 9.4.

Figure 9.4. You choose the installation type in this screen.

There are three setup options in Figure 9.4.

You can also change the destination directory where the Microsoft Exchange Server files will be installed. Setup automatically selects the first drive it finds with enough disk space to accommodate a minimum installation, but you might want to change it if you want the files somewhere else.

Custom Installation


If you choose the Complete/Custom option, you are presented with a screen like Figure 9.5. If you choose one of the other options, you skip this screen.

Figure 9.5. This shows a custom installation with all available options selected.

From this screen you can pick and choose which options to install. The first option, Microsoft Exchange Server, has options within it that can be selected or deselected. Click the Change Option button to see them.

A complete installation takes about 133MB of disk space. This includes the server software, MS Mail Connector, SMTP/Internet Mail Connector, X.400 Connector, sample applications, Microsoft Exchange Administrator program, and the online documentation. If you don't need some of these, especially the connectors, uncheck them now so they aren't installed.

A minimum installation, consisting of just the Microsoft Exchange Server program, takes about 84MB of disk space.

Licensing Mode


After you select the type of installation, Setup asks you to specify the client licensing mode, Per Server or Per Seat, as shown in Figure 9.6.

Figure 9.6. This screen is where you specify the client licensing mode for Microsoft Exchange Server.

These options are explained in the online help. Press the Help button to read about them.

Organization and Site


In the next screen, you specify the organization and site information for this server. If this is the first server in a new site, Figure 9.7 shows how the screen should look.

Figure 9.7. The screen on which the organization and site information is specified.

Note that the Create a new site radio button is selected by default. Also, the Organization Name and Site Name are automatically filled in with the company name you specified when you originally installed Windows NT Server and with the NT Server domain name, respectively. Both these fields must have a value.

Sometimes you might be installing an additional Exchange server in an existing site. If this is the case, click the Join an existing site radio button. You must then specify the name of an existing server in the site, as in Figure 9.8. The Exchange server you specify must be up and running because Setup proceeds to poll it for site-specific information to be used in your new server.

Figure 9.8. Your new server will join the existing Exchange site of which SOMESERVER is a member.

Service Account


At this point Setup is almost ready to start copying files to the server. However, you need to designate a special account as a service account. Figure 9.9 shows how Setup prompts you for the account. You must have the password for this account and it must be an administrative-level account.

Figure 9.9. Administrator is the service account designated in the domain NTDOMAIN.

The service account has to be in place for several reasons. First, the core of Microsoft Exchange Server is actually a collection of multiple NT services for the information store, the directory, and so on. These services are started and run by the service account.

Also, all additional Exchange Servers in the same site use this same service account to start and run their services. Furthermore, all Exchange Servers in a site communicate with each other using this account for a security context. If one server needs to send another server a message, the service account is one of the basic elements that enables them to talk to each other.

So, if you're installing two servers in the same site you need to specify the same service account for both of them. If you don't, they won't be able to communicate with each other.



There's one other twist on this: Exchange Servers in the same site don't have to be in the same NT domain, provided there is a trust relationship established between the domains. However, although they're in different domains they still must use the same service account.

If your designated service account does not already have the appropriate rights, Setup will do it for you. (See Figure 9.10.)

Figure 9.10. The service account was granted the appropriate policies by Microsoft Exchange Server Setup.

The Restore files and directories right is also granted to the service account. This means just what it says; files and directories can be restored regardless of file and directory permissions already in place. In a domain, this right applies to the primary and backup domain controllers. On a non-domain controller server, this right applies only to that computer. Although this right is already granted to the Administrators group, Setup wants to ensure it is granted to the service account.

Finishing Setup—Microsoft Exchange Optimizer


After Setup successfully finishes its job, you get the opportunity to run the Microsoft Exchange Optimizer, as shown in Figure 9.11.

Figure 9.11. After Setup completes, it automatically prompts you to run the Microsoft Exchange Optimizer.



Microsoft Exchange Optimizer is covered in detail in Chapter 6, "System Requirements for Optimal Performance."

Typically, you run the Optimizer utility so the internal Exchange Server parameters can be set according to your system resources. Exchange Server's default internal parameters are likely not to be configured for your system, so it's a good idea to run Optimizer when you finish Setup.



My usual practice is to exit Setup at this point without running Optimizer and modify the Command Line property of the Microsoft Exchange Optimizer icon to pass –v (verbose) as a parameter to PERFWIZ.EXE as shown in Figure 9.12. Then I run the Optimizer program. This way, I get more detailed information on exactly what parameters are altered in the system.

Figure 9.12. You can modify Microsoft Exchange Optimizer properties so it runs in verbose mode.

The engineers at Microsoft have spent a great deal of time and effort to make Optimizer as smart as possible about the configuration decisions it makes. If you run in verbose mode, it becomes apparent just how many different server parameters there are. And from my experience, Optimizer does a fine job of setting them correctly.

Microsoft Exchange Server Icons


Now you are finished with the Microsoft Exchange Server Setup program. If the setup is successful, it will have created a common group named Microsoft Exchange that contains some icons, similar to Figure 9.13.

Figure 9.13. Microsoft Exchange Server Setup automatically installs several icons in a common Program Manager group.

There are several icons here, so let's take a look at them.

First in the figure is the Optimizer icon. You might have already modified this one as described previously, so hopefully you're familiar with it. Microsoft Exchange Optimizer is covered in Chapter 6.

The next icons represent Windows NT Server Performance Monitor workspaces. These are ready-made views of various Exchange Server performance counters to help get you started monitoring performance of the server. The .PMW files are located in the BIN subdirectory where you installed Exchange Server; for example, C:\EXCHSRVR\BIN. Here's an overview of what each icon represents and why you use it.

There are three other workspace files in case you are using the Internet Mail Connector (IMC). These three basically show the flow of messages through the IMC and associated counters. If you haven't installed the IMC, the MSExchangeIMC object is not installed so these counters don't function.

After the Performance Monitor workspaces comes the Microsoft Exchange Administrator program icon. The function of this program is covered in more detail in Chapter 10, "Configuring Basic Server Operations."

Following the Administrator icons is the Microsoft Exchange Server Migration Wizard. This tools helps you migrate from MS Mail or Lotus cc:Mail. More on this in Chapter 8, "Moving From Another Mail System."

After the Migration Wizard icon is the Microsoft Exchange Setup Editor. Basically, you use this to customize the Exchange client Setup program for whatever default options you want to set. More on this in Chapter 11, "Installing Microsoft Exchange Clients."

Finally, if you installed online documentation, you will see the Books Online icon. This is a help file that contains an electronic copy of the Microsoft Exchange Server documentation. This is an excellent resource for reference—it is an electronic version of the hard copy manuals.

Summary


As I said in the beginning, this chapter is straightforward, and hopefully you now have detailed insight into the Setup process.

First and foremost, the objective in this chapter is to provide you with a step-by-step guide through Exchange Server Setup exactly as you might encounter it yourself.

Another objective is to provide a checklist of last-minute items to check before running Setup, such as having the proper NT Service Pack installed, having a service account ready, and others.

You have been introduced to Exchange Optimizer so you can see how important it is and how it fits into the Setup process. Refer to Chapter 6 for more details about how the Optimizer works, what it does for you, and why you use it.

Finally, the chapter covered a summary of the icons installed for Microsoft Exchange Server and gave some suggestions about how, when, and where to use them. Most of these represent components of Exchange Server that are covered in more detail elsewhere in this book.

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