Lets Exchange: Exchange Server 2013 Preview Installation

As promised, here are some more details of the brand new Exchange Server 2013 Preview! In this post, we will start by performing a simple installation of an “all-in-one” on a Windows Server 2012 virtual machine.

Roles

I will go into more details on this topic soon, but as a quick note in case you don’t know yet, Exchange 2013 Preview consists only of the following two server roles:

Client Access server proxies connectivity for all clients (Outlook, OWA, mobile devices, POP and SMTP) and also accepts e-mail from and delivers e-mail to other mail hosts on the Internet;
Mailbox server stores mailbox data, processes client connections proxied by the CAS and handles Unified Messaging requests. And yes, we still have DAGs :)

Note that the Edge Transport server role isn't included with Exchange 2013 Preview. However, it supports the Exchange Server 2010 SP2 Edge Transport server role.

System Requirements

You can check the full System Requirements in the Exchange 2013 System Requirements technet page. In here, I will just provide a basic overview.

Coexistence

At this stage, Exchange 2013 Preview does not support coexistence with any other versions of Exchange... However, the RTM version is said to support coexistence starting with Exchange 2007 (not sure what Service Pack yet).

Active Directory

Your Active Directory must be at Windows Server 2003 forest functionality mode or higher, with at least one Global Catalog on Windows Server 2008.

IPv6 Support

IPv6 is supported only when IPv4 is also used. A pure IPv6 environment is still not supported...

Operating System

This one is really important, so I will mention all of them. For the Mailbox and Client Access server roles:

• Windows Server 2012

• Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard with SP1

• Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with SP1

• Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter RTM or later

For the Management Tools:

• Windows Server 2012

• Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard with SP1

• Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with SP1

• Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter RTM or later

• 64-bit edition of Windows 8 Release Preview

• 64-bit edition of Windows 7 with SP1

Supported Clients

Exchange 2013 Preview supports the following minimum versions of Microsoft Office Outlook and Microsoft Entourage for Mac:

• Outlook 2013 Preview

• Outlook 2010 SP1 with April 2012 Cumulative Update

• Outlook 2007 SP3 with July 2012 Cumulative Update

• Entourage 2008 for Mac, Web Services Edition

• Outlook for Mac 2011

Virtualization

The following is supported:

• Windows Server 2012

• Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V technology

• Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2

• Any third-party hypervisor that has been validated under the Windows Server Virtualization Validation Program.

Prerequisites

Again, you can check the full prerequisites in the Exchange 2013 Prerequisites technet page as I will just provide a basic overview and only how to install Exchange 2013 Preview on Windows Server 2012! Note that there are many more steps involved to install it on Windows Server 2008!

To install both Mailbox and CAS server roles in the same server follow these steps:

Open Windows PowerShell.

Run the following command to install the required Windows components:

Install-WindowsFeature AS-HTTP-Activation, Desktop-Experience, NET-Framework-45-Features, RPC-over-HTTP-proxy, RSAT-Clustering, Web-Mgmt-Console, WAS-Process-Model, Web-Asp-Net45, Web-Basic-Auth, Web-Client-Auth, Web-Digest-Auth, Web-Dir-Browsing, Web-Dyn-Compression, Web-Http-Errors, Web-Http-Logging, Web-Http-Redirect, Web-Http-Tracing, Web-ISAPI-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Filter, Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console, Web-Metabase, Web-Mgmt-Console, Web-Mgmt-Service, Web-Net-Ext45, Web-Request-Monitor, Web-Server, Web-Stat-Compression, Web-Static-Content, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-WMI, Windows-Identity-Foundation

After you've installed the operating system roles and features, install the following software in this order:

• Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 4.0, Core Runtime 64-bit

• Microsoft Office 2010 Filter Pack 64 bit

• Microsoft Office 2010 Filter Pack SP1 64 bit

For the Preview edition, you must also uninstall Microsoft Visual C++ 11 Beta Redistributable (x64). This must be done after you've installed UCMA, but before you run Exchange 2013 Preview Setup! To uninstall Microsoft Visual C++ 11 Beta Redistributable (x64), do the following:

• Open Control Panel > Programs and Features.

• Select Visual C++ 11 Beta Redistributable (x64) - 11.0.50531 and then click Uninstall.

• In Microsoft Visual C++ 11 Beta setup, click Uninstall.

• When Microsoft Visual C++ 11 Beta is uninstalled, click Close.

Prepare Active Directory

Now the usual steps in order to prepare AD. From a Command Prompt window, run the following commands:

1. setup /PrepareSchema or setup /ps

2. setup /PrepareAD /OrganizationName:<organization name> or setup /p /on:<organization name>

Now run one of the following:

• Run setup /PrepareDomain or setup /pd to prepare the local domain. You don't need to run this in the domain where you ran Step 2. Running setup /PrepareAD prepares the local domain;

• Run setup /PrepareDomain:<FQDN of domain you want to prepare> to prepare a specific domain;

• Run setup /PrepareAllDomains or setup /pad to prepare all domains in your organization.

If you want to verify that AD has been successfully prepared:

• In the Schema naming context, verify that the rangeUpper property on ms-Exch-Schema-Verision-Pt is set to 15132;

• In the Configuration naming context, verify that the objectVersion property in the CN=<your organization>,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=<domain> container is set to 15448;

• In the Default naming context, verify that the objectVersion property in the Microsoft Exchange System Objects container under DC=<root domain> is set to 13236.

Install Exchange 2013 in Unattended Mode

The unattended mode is very similar to what it has been in the previous versions. The only differences so far seem to be the addition of the [/IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms] parameter and the removal of [/AdamLdapPort:<port>], [/AdamSslPort:<port>], [/LanguagePack:<language pack bundle>] and [/Hosting]:

Setup.exe
[/Mode:"setup mode"]
[/IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms]
[/Role:"server roles to install"]
[/InstallWindowsComponents]
[/OrganizationName:"name for the new Exchange organization"]
[/TargetDir:"target directory"]
[/SourceDir:"source directory"]
[/UpdatesDir:"directory from which to install updates"]
[/DomainController:"FQDN of domain controller"]
[/AnswerFile:"filename"]
[/DoNotStartTransport]
[/LegacyRoutingServer]
[/EnableErrorReporting]
[/NoSelfSignedCertificates]
[/AddUmLanguagePack:"UM language pack name"]
[/RemoveUmLanguagePack:"UM language pack name"]
[/NewProvisionedServer:"server"]
[/RemoveProvisionedServer:"server"]
[/MdbName:"mailbox database name"]
[/DbFilePath:"Edb file path"]
[/LogFolderPath:"log folder path"]
[/Upgrade]

For example:

Setup.exe /mode:Install /role:ClientAccess,Mailbox /OrganizationName:LetsExchange /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms

This command creates an Exchange 2013 Preview organization in Active Directory called LetsExchange, installs the Client Access server role, Mailbox server role and the management tools, and accepts the Exchange 2013 Preview licensing terms.

Setup.exe /mode:Install /role:ClientAccess,Mailbox /TargetDir:"C:\Exchange Server"

This command installs the Client Access server role, the Mailbox server role and the management tools to the "C:\Exchange Server" directory. This command assumes an Exchange 2013 Preview organization has already been prepared.

Install Exchange 2013 Using the Setup Wizard

1. Start Exchange 2013 Preview Setup by double-clicking Setup.exe;

2. On the Check for Updates page, choose whether you want Setup to connect to the Internet and download product and security updates for Exchange 2013 Preview. Click next to continue;

3. On the Copying File page, Setup copies files required for setup. When Setup is finished copying files and is ready to begin, click next;

4. The Introduction page begins the process of installing Exchange. Click next to continue;

5. On the License Agreement page, review the software license terms. Select I accept the terms in the license agreement and then click next;

6. On the Error Reporting page, select whether you want to enable or disable the Exchange Error Reporting feature, and then click next;

7. On the Checking Required Software page, Setup makes sure that you've installed the software required for setup to run. If any applications are listed, install them and then run Setup again. If all required software is found, click next to continue;

8. On the Server Role Selection page, choose whether you want to install the Mailbox role, the Client Access role, both roles or just the Management Tools (you can add additional server roles later if you choose not to install them during this installation). Click next to continue;

9. On the Installation Space and Location page, either accept the default installation location or click Browse to choose a new location. Make sure that you have enough disk space available in the location where you want to install Exchange. Click next to continue;

10. If this is the first Exchange server in your organization, on the Exchange Organization page, type a name for your Exchange organization;

11. If you want to use the Active Directory split permissions model, select Apply Active Directory split permission security model to the Exchange organization. Click next to continue;

12. If you're installing the Mailbox role, on the Malware Protection Settings page, choose whether you want to enable or disable malware scanning. If you disable malware scanning, it can be enabled in the future. Click next to continue;

13. If you're installing the Client Access server role, on the Configure Client Access Server external domain page, click This Client Access server will be Internet-facing if the Client Access server you're installing will be accessible from the Internet. Then, enter a domain name to use to configure your Client Access servers. If the Client Access server won't be Internet-facing, you can click next without configuring a domain name. Click next to continue;

14. On the Customer Experience Improvement Program page, choose the appropriate selections for your organization, and then click next to continue;

15. On the Readiness Checks page, view the status to determine if the organization and server role prerequisite checks completed successfully. If they haven't completed successfully, you must resolve any reported errors before you can install Exchange 2013 Preview. From the screenshots below you will see I was missing a few updates... If/when all readiness checks have completed successfully, click next to install Exchange 2013 Preview;

16. On the Completion page, click Finish;

17. Restart the computer after Exchange 2013 Preview has completed;

18. Complete your deployment by performing the tasks provided in Exchange 2013 Post-Installation Tasks.

Overview

As I mentioned before, this post is only about installing Exchange 2013 Preview. I will be posting more about this new version of Exchange, but in the mean time here are some screenshots to satisfy your curiosity:

Exchange Administration Center