ServersLearn Exchange Server 2000: ForestPrep and DomainPrep Page 2

Learn Exchange Server 2000: ForestPrep and DomainPrep Page 2

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ForestPrep Continued

Now that we have that out of the way, lets go ahead and take a look at running setup with the ForestPrep switch. At this point, we will take it as a given that all the proper requirements have been met.
The first thing that we will do is go to the “run” command, and either type or browse to get the path to the Exchange 2000 setup file. Once we have located it, we will add a space at the end, and then the /ForestPrep switch. Your run command should look something like this:

Again, the spelling is important as we will see momentarily. The first screen that will come up after this will be the Welcome Screen, and after that we will see the License Agreement Screen, like this:

Next up is the Product Identification Screen, (he he he…sorry, no OEM numbers here!)

And then we should see Component Selection Screen:

I have highlighted the ForestPrep option to bring your attention to this screen. If you had mispelled ForestPrep when typing the command back at the beginning, ForestPrep would not be an option. In fact, what you would see would be the normal Exchange installation options, asking what Exchange components you want to install, and where you want to install them. Also, if you are not logged onto the domain, the utility will not allow you to select the ForestPrep option. Once we have dealt with all those issues, and click next, we will see the Installation Type Screen:

For our purposes today, we will be dealing with the installation of the first Exchange 2000 Server into our Windows 2000 domain. In a later article, we will discuss upgrading an existing Exchange 5.5 environment and the issues that are unique to that particular environment. As I have selected to create a New Exchange Organization, the next screen I see will prompt me for the name I want to use for my Organization. As you can see, I have selected 2000ExTrainers as the Organization name:

The next screen prompts for the account to be granted Exchange 2000 administrative rights to the root of the Exchange Organization. As I mentioned earlier, you can select any account that you want at this point, or if you like, you can use the default and you will always have the option of running the Exchange Administration Delegation Wizard at a later point in time.

After selecting the user account, ForestPrep begins the process of actually extending the schema. This process can take from 30 minutes to several hours to complete, so you will need to be patient. This is also one of the reasons we recommend running ForestPrep early in the Windows 2000 deployment process. The ForestPrep process is actually a ten-step process, and the screen that shows during this time will actually count through the steps, one by one.

When it does finish (this process took 30 minutes on a PIII 700 with 512MB of RAM) you will get the final screen, and now we will have finished the first step in actually preparing to install our first Exchange 2000 server into our Organization. Of course, we aren’t done with installing Exchange 2000. In fact, we have only just begun. But by allowing an Enterprise Administrator with Schema Administrator rights to accomplish this task, we have at least ensured the success of the first step of our Exchange 2000 installation.

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