In Exchange 2003, an installation checklist guided the administrator through the prerequisites and installation of the various components of Exchange. In Exchange 2007, this checklist is more intrinsic to the setup process. Whether installing anew, migrating, upgrading or transitioning, there are basic steps performed through the Exchange Setup Wizard implemented as setup.exe.


These components can be installed and verified manually prior to Exchange 2007 setup to make deployment day a little more efficient, but if they are not already in place, Exchange setup will install them. Additionally for some server roles, especially the Mailbox Role, IIS and the World Wide Web services are also needed.

Forest and Domain Preparation
In Exchange 2000/2003, we would run a forest preparation step followed by a domain preparation step. These "preps" are now executed automatically through the setup application in Exchange 2007. The downside of this is that the person who runs Exchange 2007 setup must be a schema admin.

To prepare the forest and domain(s) with the lowest permissions required by the administrator, we still have the option of running the forest and domain preparations separately

The sequence for the setup switches run from a command prompt would be:

1. Setup /PrepareLegacyExchangePermissions (or setup /pl)
2. Setup /PrepareSchema (or setup /ps)
3. Setup/ PrepareAD (or setup /p)

Setup will check for the previous steps before executing and if those steps are not validated, will assume that they are to be completed as well and process those. So if we run the setup /PrepareAD step (analogous to setup /DomainPrep in Exchange 2000/2003) and the schema has not been updated, then setup will automatically run the setup /PrepareSchema switch (analogous to setup /ForestPrep) first provided the administrator executing the commands has sufficient rights to do so.

Exchange Setup Wizard
Through the setup GUI we can select the specific roles we want to employ for an Exchange installation. At that point, setup engages a readiness check through a PowerShell cmdlet leveraging the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer engine. These checks are specific to the roles we have selected and in some cases may require that we install a Windows component before returning to Exchange setup, such as IIS or the World Wide Web services for the Mailbox role.

Readiness Checks
The readiness checks engaged in Exchange setup are executed as PowerShell cmdlets. Setup will call the Exchange Management Shell to execute, with the appropriate parameters:
Test-SetupHealth

If the wizard indicates that a prerequisite has not been met, then that deficiency must first be remedied and then Exchange 2007 setup needs to be run again. If you add a new role to an existing Exchange installation, the Setup Installation Wizard will again walk through the readiness checks.

Summary
Exdeploy.exe from Exchange 2003 has disappeared, but the preparation for Exchange 2007 has not suffered. The steps to a successful installation remain in the setup application with readiness checks. Some preparation steps are performed automatically where they are needed.

-- William Lefkovics