Coming back from a nice vacation to the beautiful Brittany in France, I thought it was time to collect and process feedback and suggestions on several scripts, starting with the Exchange 2013 unattended installation script for Windows Server 2012.

Changes in version 1.1 of the script:

• When the script was used to also prepare Active Directory, RSAT-ADDS-Tools was uninstalled as part of the cleanup. Per request, I’ve removed the uninstallation of that feature;
• The script now detects pending reboots after installing the required features. When ran in AutoPilot mode, the script will reboot and restart the phase (preparing Active Directory, which can’t be run with pending reboots because Exchange’s Setup won’t like it). When not running in AutoPilot mode, you need to start the script manually. You can omit providing installation parameters as they are saved, even a pending is detected;
• The Windows feature Server-Media-Foundation will be installed explicitly as it is an UCMA 4.0 requirement;
• The credentials provided for AutoPilot mode will be validated;
• The OS version check is changed to a string which should enable installation on non-US Operating Systems.

You can download the updated version of the script via the original Exchange 2013 Unattended Installation Script page or directly from the Technet Gallery. Enjoy!

I’m pleased to announce the availability of Install-Exchange2013.ps1, a PowerShell script to perform a fully unattended setup of Exchange Server 2013 RTM or CU1.

The script takes care of:

• Installing required Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 / 2012 features and optionally prepare Active Directory (phase 1);
• Install Exchange Server 2013 prerequisites (phase 2);
• Optionally install Exchange Server 2013 (phase 3)
• Optionally – depending on phase 3 – perform post-configuration (phase 4, tailor to your own needs);
• When done, the script will perform some cleaning up, like removing the state file and setting the startup of Transport Service to Automatic (phase 5).

Usage
This script version requires a domain-joined Windows Server 2012 system, an account to perform the installation (and optionally prepare Active Directory) and the location where the Exchange Server 2013 installation files are stored (e.g. an UNC path).

The syntax is as follows:

Install-Exchange2013.ps1 [-InstallCAS] [-InstallMailbox] -SourcePath <string> [-Organization <string>] [-MDBName <string>] [-MDBDBPath <string>] [-MDBLogPath <string>] [-InstallPath <string>] [-TargetPath <string>] [-AutoPilot] [-Credentials <pscredential>] [-NoSetup] [<CommonParameters>]

A short description of the parameters:

• Organization (optional): Specifies name of the Exchange organization to create. When omitted, the step to prepare Active Directory (PrepareAD) will be skipped.
• InstallMailbox: Specifies you want to install the Mailbox server role.
• InstallCAS: Specifies you want to install the CAS role.
• MDBName (optional): Specifies name of the initially created database.
• MDBDBPath (optional): Specifies database path of the initially created database (requires MDBName).
• MDBLogPath (optional): Specifies log path of the initially created database (requires MDBName).
• InstallPath (optional): Specifies (temporary) location of where to store prerequisites, transcript and state file. Default location is C:\Install.
• NoSetup (optional): Specifies you don’t want to perform Exchange setup.
• SourcePath: Specifies location of the Exchange 2013 installation files (setup.exe).
• TargetPath: Specifies the location where to install the Exchange 2013.
• AutoPilot (switch): Specifies you want to automatically restart, logon using credentials specified and continue the installation. When not specified, you will need to restart, logon and start the script manually each time (without parameters).
• Credentials (optional): Specifies credentials to use for automatic logon. Use DOMAIN\User or user@domain. When not specified, you will be prompted to enter credentials.

Note that the script uses an XML file to store the (original) parameters used to start the script but also to keep track of the the process. Of course, if required, you can use predefined XML files to run the script without parameters.

Note that when not present, the script will try to download the prerequisites from the internet. When that isn’t possible or to save bandwidth, you can put them in the location defined by InstallPath and the script will detect and use them.

The post-configuration is currently adding IFilters for OneNote and Publisher (Mailbox) only. There are comments in the script where to add your own additional post-configuration steps.

For example, assume we want to start a fully unattended install of an Exchange Server 2013 Client Access server, using a network location for the Exchange Server 2013 source files. After setting the Execution Policy to Unrestricted and storing the script locally, we start the script using:

 .\Install-Exchange2013.ps1 –InstallCAS –SourcePath ‘\\server\share\isos\Microsoft\Exchange2013\mu_exchange_server_2013_x64_dvd_1112105’ –AutoPilot –Verbose

The script will perform some checks and since AutoPilot was specified without using the Credentials parameter, the script will ask for credentials.

After entering the credentials, the required features will be installed. Since OrganizationName wasn’t specified, Active Directory preparation will be skipped.

After rebooting, the system will automatically log on using the credentials specified earlier and start the script (RunOnce registry key is utilized for this purpose). It will read the last known state from the XML file and will continue with the next phase, which is downloading (when not present) and installing the Exchange prerequisites.

Next, after rebooting and the automatic logon, Exchange will be installed from the source location.

When done, the system will perform post configuration and finalization steps including reboots and logons. Note that it may seem like a lot of reboots, but rebooting after installing Windows features and Exchange prerequisites is required anyway so I put reboots after the other milestones as well.

You can download Install-Exchange2013.ps1 here from the Technet Gallery. Please leave your feedback or bug reports in the comments.

Revision History
1.02: Fixes AD preparation logic and adds checks to see if domain is in native mode. It also fixes a small typo in the post-prepare AD function.
1.03: Tested against Exchange Server 2013 CU1, replaced installing OS features manually by using /InstallWindowsComponents and removed installation of Office Filtering Pack (routines still there because they’re required for the Exchange 2010 SP3 version I’m working on).
1.1: When AD was prepared, RSAT-ADDS-Tools won’t be uninstalled, pending reboot detection (in AutoPilot, script will reboot and restart phase), installs Server-Media-Foundation feature (UCMA 4.0 requirement), validates provided credentials for AutoPilot and checks OS version as string (should accommodate non-US OS).
1.5: Added support for WS2008R2 (i.e. added prereqs NET45, WMF3), IEESC toggling, KB974405, KB2619234, KB2758857 (supersedes KB2533623). Inserted phase for WS2008R2 for installing hotfixes; this phase is skipped for WS2012. Added InstallPath to AutoPilot set (or default won’t be set).
1.51: Rewrote Validate-Credentials due to missing .NET 3.5 Out of the Box in WS2008R2. Testing for proper loading of servermanager module in WS2008R2. Fixed logic in WS2008R2 SP1 detection.
1.52: Fix .NET / PrepareAD order for WS2008R2, relocated RebootPending check
1.53: Fix phase of Forest/Domain Level check