I am currently in the process of re-creating my company's domain and AD. I currently have a base machine with three VHDs, 1 - WS08R2E as DC, AD, WSUS, 2 - WS08R2E (blank) and 3 - WS08R2E (blank). The plan is to install Exchange Server 2010 on the second VHD. I have been all over technet, and the web, and some of the help documents are over my head, I am still learning when it comes to Exchange. In following some steps I found online; I have already ran setup /p on my domain controller and the Exchange Schema's are now in my AD. I setup the second VHD and I tried one install of Exchange and it wouldn't work, so I wiped out that VHD and have started over. I currently have the target VHD setup with only the latest updates for WS08R2E and a static IP configured. Can someone put some laymen's tips on how to properly install, and then configure Exchange so it communicates with my AD the way it supposed to work? Any help will be appreciated! Joel Martin IT Specialist Inland Tarp & Liner

Hi Your production and lab environment is totally separated? I hope so.. It looks like you already prepared your AD for Exchange 2010 SP1? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125224.aspx For installing the prereq's check this link http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691354.aspx Check the deployment assistant, it can help you a lot http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/exdeploy2010/default.aspx Jonas Andersson MCTS: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007/2010 | MCITP: EMA 2007/2010 | MCSE/MCSA Blog: http://www.testlabs.se/blog

Production and Lab are on separate subnets. On my AD server, all I ran was "setup /p [/on:<organization name>]", which on the reference page I was reading it said to do. However, I see on the "http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125224.aspx", that they reference "Setup /PrepareLegacyExchangePermissions", "setup /PrepareSchema". Do I need to do these as well? Also something I just thought of, my domain is domain.local, however, when I prepared my AD, I typed in "setup /p [/on:domain]", should I have entered "setup /p [/on:domain.local]" ?Joel Martin IT Specialist Inland Tarp & Liner

Well, I got through the installation steps, but was still missing some patches, and now the EMC is failing to initialize. Here is the response: The following error occurred when retrieving user information for "DOMAIN\Administrator": The operation couldn't be preformed because object 'S-1-5-21-.....' couldn't be found on 'SERVER.DOMAIN.LOCAL'. It was running the command 'Get-LogonUser'. Even after installing Rollup 1 and 2 for Exchange 2010 SP1 and making sure all the KBs are installed on the prerequisites page, this error is still occurring. I am going to just wash the Exchange VHD again, and remove the Exchange Schema from my AD and try this again, and if it still isn't working for me then I guess I'll call in some professional help to do it.Joel Martin IT Specialist Inland Tarp & Liner

Should Exchange 2010 be installed with the Servers local Administrator account, or should I log in with a Domain administrator and install it on the server that way?Joel Martin IT Specialist Inland Tarp & Liner

Hi You need to be local admin on the machine you will install or else it won't work And then you will need domain admin and schema admin and/or enterprise admin http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125224.aspx Use the assistant i posted about earlier, it will help you Jonas Andersson MCTS: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007/2010 | MCITP: EMA 2007/2010 | MCSE/MCSA Blog: http://www.testlabs.se/blog

Hi Joel Martin, Jonas gave some good information for you, please learn it more carefully. Per you scenario, I would suggest that you do not need run the cmdlet for the preparation for the schema and domain, we just need to run the installtion GUI wizard and it would do the task qutomatically; before the installtion, we just need install the proper features and roles on the server. Regards! Gavin Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

A very basic guide for the installation is provided here; http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?/topic/3058-how-to-guide-installing-exchange-2010-sp1/ Like Gavin-Zhang wrote it's not a requirement to run preparead before doing the installation using the GUIJonas Andersson MCTS: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007/2010 | MCITP: EMA 2007/2010 | Blog: http://www.testlabs.se/blog | Follow me on twitter: jonand82