Exchange Server Pro » Server 2008

Installing an Exchange 2007 Hub Transport Server on Windows Server 2008

Paul Cunningham — Sat, 28 May 2011 12:00:28 +0000

The Exchange Server 2007 Hub Transport server role is responsible for transmitting all email messages between recipients inside and outside of the organization. Every email message sent or received will traverse at least one Hub Transport server, even messages sent between mailboxes that reside in the same mailbox database.

Outlook clients do not send mail directly to the Hub Transport server via SMTP. The Mailbox server submits sent messages to the Hub Transport server instead. However non-MAPI clients and devices such as network printers and POP/IMAP users do send mail via the Hub Transport server using SMTP.

This tutorial demonstrates how to install an Exchange Server 2007 Hub Transport server on Windows Server 2008. It is assumed that you have already extended the Active Directory schema for Exchange 2007.

Installing Exchange 2007 Hub Transport Server Pre-Requisites on Windows Server 2008

On Windows Server 2008 the pre-requisite roles and features for the Exchange 2007 Hub Transport server role can be installed using ServerManagerCmd.exe.

Launch an elevated command prompt and run the following command.

ServerManagerCmd -i PowerShell Web-Metabase Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console

Next download the Windows Installer 4.5 file from Microsoft and install it on the server. The Windows6.0-KB942288-v2-x64.msu file is the correct one for a 64-bit Windows Server 2008 server.

A restart will be required before you move on to the next step.

Installing the Exchange 2007 Hub Transport Server Role

To install the Exchange 2007 Hub Transport server role download the Exchange Server 2007 SP3 setup files from Microsoft and extract them to a folder on the server’s hard disk.

Launch an elevated command prompt and run the following command.

setup /m:install /r:h,t

Welcome to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unattended Setup

Preparing Exchange Setup

The following server roles will be installed
    Management Tools
    Hub Transport Role

Performing Microsoft Exchange Server Prerequisite Check

    Hub Transport Role Checks        ......................... COMPLETED

Configuring Microsoft Exchange Server

    Copying Exchange files           ......................... COMPLETED
    Exchange Management Tools        ......................... COMPLETED
    Hub Transport Server Role        ......................... COMPLETED

The Microsoft Exchange Server setup operation completed successfully.
Setup has made changes to operating system settings that require a reboot to tak
e effect. Please reboot this server prior to placing it into production.

Reboot the server before proceeding to apply the latest updates and configure the server for your environment.

Install and Register the Office Filter Pack IFilters

An optional step is to install the Office Filter Pack and register the IFilters so that Exchange Server 2007 can index those file types.

You can install either the Office 2007 Filter Pack or the Office 2010 Filter Pack (which includes the Office 2007 IFilters). After you install the filter pack the IFilters need to be registered.

You can find the instructions and the script to register the IFilters here. Copy the script into Notepad and save it as Exchange_reg.vbs.

The script creates a registry file for you in the same folder.

Double-click the reg file to import it into the registry of the Hub Transport server (make sure you do this while you’re logged onto the Hub Transport server itself).

Although the script tells you to restart the Microsoft Exchange Search service, that service does not exist on Hub Transport servers so you can ignore it.

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Preparing a New Server for Exchange Server 2007

Paul Cunningham — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:00:23 +0000

Install a new Windows server on 64-bit hardware for Exchange Server 2007. Both Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 can be used for Exchange Server 2007 without making much difference to the rest of the transition, so you can choose to install any of the following operating system versions:

Windows Server 2003 64-bit Standard/Enterprise with Service Pack 2
Windows Server 2003 64-bit Standard/Enterprise R2 with Service Pack 2
Windows Server 2008 64-bit Standard/Enterprise

Make sure the server has a static IP address, is a member of the domain, and has run a Windows Update.

Windows Server 2003 operating system pre-requisites

If you chose Windows Server 2003 the following Windows Components and additional software must be installed.

IIS 6.0 installed with the following components configured:

Network COM+ access
World Wide Web service
ASP.NET 2.0

Note: NNTP and SMTP must not be installed with IIS.

Hot fixes:

Update for Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition (904639)
Update for Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition (918980)

Additional software:

Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 with Service Pack 1
Microsoft Windows PowerShell 1.0
Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0

Windows Server 2008 operating system pre-requisites

If you chose Windows Server 2008 the following roles and features must be installed using the ServerManagerCMD.exe command.

ServerManagerCmd –i PowerShell Web-Server Web-ISAPI-Ext Web-Metabase Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console Web-Basic-Auth Web-Digest-Auth Web-Windows-Auth Web-Dyn-Compression RPC-over-HTTP-proxy RSAT-ADDS

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Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 Announced

Paul Cunningham — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:22:17 +0000

Microsoft has announced that Service Pack 2 for Exchange Server 2007 will be released in Q3 of this year. The MS Exchange Team has listed some of the key new features in their blog post here.

A welcome addition is the new volume snapshot backup plugin for Windows Server 2008. Currently Exchange Server 2007 cannot be backed up by the built-in backup application that ships with Windows Server 2008. Microsoft announced nearly a year ago that they were working on adding this functionality in a future update to Exchange, which we can now expect in SP2 when it is released soon.

The backup plugin doesn’t operate in the way we’re familiar with in previous version of Windows Server when backup up Exchange. The MS Exchange Team explains the backup and restore operations in more detail in this blog post.

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Installing VMWare Tools on Windows Server 2008 Core

Paul Cunningham — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 05:24:56 +0000

When installing the VMWare tools on a core install of Windows Server 2008 some people are confused to find that nothing happens after selecting “Install/Upgrade VMWare Tools” from the client window.

Even though the VMWare Tools image mounts to the virtual CD-ROM drive it does not autorun as you would expect in a normal install of Windows Server 2008. However you can still change directory to the virtual CD-ROM and see the VMWare Tools installation files are available.

To install the VMWare Tools you can simply launch setup.exe from the command line.

Follow the installation wizard accepting the default settings. You can also ignore the warnings about the Microsoft Help HTML engine and the version of Internet Explorer.

When the installer has finished you can reboot as normal and the VMWare Tools will now be installed.

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Windows Server 2008 activation gripe

Paul Cunningham — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:24:38 +0000

Here is a tip for Microsoft, if you’re going to pop up and remind me to activate my Windows Server 2008 installation, give me the option right here to enter my product key so that when I hit “Activate Windows online now” it doesn’t fail.

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Installing WSUS 3.0 SP1 on Windows Server 2008

Paul Cunningham — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 09:30:53 +0000

In this post I’ll show you how to install Windows Software Update Services (WSUS) 3.0 with Service Pack 1 on a Windows Server 2008 server.

Install WSUS pre-requisites

First, install the WSUS operating system pre-requisites. These pre-requisites are listed on the WSUS 3.0 release notes and can be installed using the ServerManagerCMD.exe command line tool.

C:\>servermanagercmd -install web-asp-net web-static-content web-windows-auth we
b-mgmt-compat web-metabase
................................................................................
..............

Start Installation...
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] Management Tools.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] Web Server.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] IIS 6 Management Compatibility.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] Common HTTP Features.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] Security.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] Application Development.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Windows Process Activation Service] .NET Environment.

[Installation] Succeeded: [Windows Process Activation Service] Process Model.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] IIS 6 WMI Compatibility.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] Windows Authentication.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] ISAPI Extensions.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] ISAPI Filters.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] Static Content.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] Default Document.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] Request Filtering.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] IIS 6 Management Console.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] IIS 6 Scripting Tools.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] .NET Extensibility.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] ASP.NET.
<100/100>

Success: Installation succeeded.

Though it is not a pre-requisite I also find it useful to install the IIS7 Management Console.

C:\>servermanagercmd -i web-mgmt-console
.................................................

Start Installation...

[Installation] Succeeded: .
[Installation] Succeeded: [Windows Process Activation Service] Configuration API
s.
[Installation] Succeeded: [Web Server (IIS)] IIS Management Console.
<100/100>

Success: Installation succeeded.

Next, download and install Microsoft Report Viewer 2005 SP1.

Install WSUS 3.0 SP1

Download the install package for WSUS 3.0 with SP1, choosing the appropriate version for your server architecture. I have downloaded the 32-bit version for this server. Run the install package to install WSUS.

Configure WSUS 3.0 SP1

After the install is complete the WSUS configuration wizard appears. The first warning that appears asks whether the server firewall is configured to allow clients to access the server.

Windows Server 2008 installs with the firewall activated by default, so a rule for the WSUS ports must be configured. Open “Windows Firewall…” from the Administrative Tools menu and navigate to Inbound Rules. Note that two WSUS rules have been configured for HTTP and HTTPS. The HTTPS rule is not enabled, so if you want to use SSL for WSUS client connectivity you must enable it.

Complete the WSUS configuration wizard.

Your WSUS 3.0 SP1 installation is now complete and ready to be used.

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Microsoft Certification – The Mark Russinovich Exam

Paul Cunningham — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:00:55 +0000

Microsoft has released information for exam 70-660, TS: Windows Internals. This might be an odd sounding title to anyone who has never heard of Mark Russinovich or Sysinternals. From the MS Learning site:

This exam validates deep technical skills in the area of Windows Internals. Including troubleshooting operating systems that are not performing as expected or applications that are not working correctly, identifying code defects, and developing and debugging applications that run unmanaged code or that are tightly integrated with the operating system, such as Microsoft SQL Server, third party applications, antivirus software, and device drivers.

If that makes little sense take a look at Mark’s blog on Technet and you’ll see the type and depth of content they are talking about.

Candidates for this exam are engineers, developers, or IT staff who work with Windows at a level that requires Windows Internals knowledge. Candidates for this exam are typically in the upper echelon of the technical staff at their companies. These individuals typically hold such positions as escalation engineer, technical lead, and software design engineer. Their level of knowledge spans products both inside and outside the Microsoft Corporation. These individuals are involved in resolving problems that require deep understanding of Windows Internals rather than problems about planning and infrastructure development or how to use or configure a product that runs on Windows.

Sounds like a pretty tough exam, and the preparation looks even tougher. Though the exam is (apparently) available from October 10th this year, currently the preparation materials listed are as follows:

Classroom Training – There is no classroom training currently available.
Microsoft E-Learning – There is no Microsoft E-Learning training currently available.
Microsoft Press Books – There are no Microsoft Press books currently available.
Practice Tests – There are no practice tests currently available.

So that makes preparing for a tough exam pretty difficult. But its a pretty safe bet that the exam is going to cover the topics listed in Mark’s two books, Windows Internals 4th Edition (for 2000, XP, and 2003) and Windows Internals 5th Edition (for Vista and 2008).

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Exchange Server Pro » Server 2008

Installing an Exchange 2007 Hub Transport Server on Windows Server 2008

Installing Exchange 2007 Hub Transport Server Pre-Requisites on Windows Server 2008

Installing the Exchange 2007 Hub Transport Server Role

Install and Register the Office Filter Pack IFilters

Related posts:

Preparing a New Server for Exchange Server 2007

Windows Server 2003 operating system pre-requisites

Windows Server 2008 operating system pre-requisites

Related posts:

Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 Announced

Related posts:

Installing VMWare Tools on Windows Server 2008 Core

Related posts:

Windows Server 2008 activation gripe

Related posts:

Installing WSUS 3.0 SP1 on Windows Server 2008

Install WSUS pre-requisites

Install WSUS 3.0 SP1

Configure WSUS 3.0 SP1

Related posts:

Microsoft Certification – The Mark Russinovich Exam

Related posts: