Exchange 2010 SP1 Beta Setup & Prerequisites

Posted on June 10, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

Many of us have been setting up and testing SP1 Beta in (I hope) lab environments. One of the nice additions to the setup process people reported is the option Automatically install Windows Server roles and features required for Exchange Server, shown during the Installation Type selection. Be advised that this option is – as stated – limited to Windows Server roles and underlying features only. You still need to install other possible prerequisites first, such as the 2007 Office System Converter. Also, the option doesn’t seem to work 100% in SP1 Beta, as I had to manually add IIS features like IIS7 Basic Authentication and IIS7 Windows Authentication.

Although this potentially saves us executing the well-known Add-WindowsFeauture cmdlets (2008 R2 or ServerManagerCmd in 2008 SP2, see this article), I hope Microsoft includes automatic installation of the additional prerequisite components in SP1 RTM as well. I expect it would be little trouble to include these components as well, accelerating the process of installing Exchange 2010 SP1 and rendering prerequisite installation scripts like this script from Pat Richard obsolete.

Note that Exchange 2010 setup also supports resuming. Nice when setup discovers a pending restart; resuming means you can reboot, start setup again and continue where you left off; no need to enter all the information again. More information on resuming setup and watermarks here.

Note that I’ve been installing Exchange 2010 SP1 Beta on Windows Server 2008 R2 only so far, so on Windows Server 2008 SP2 your mileage may vary.

Exchange 2010 SP1 Beta updates (cont’d)

Posted on June 9, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

Even more collateral updates after the release of Exchange Server 2010 SP1 Beta. Today the updated Exchange Server 2010 SP1 Beta Help file and the Exchange Server 2010 SP1 Beta UM Language Packs saw daylight.

The standalone Exchange Server 2010 SP1 Beta Help file can be used to as a reference to plan, deploy and manage your Exchange 2010 SP1 Beta organization.

The Exchange Server 2010 SP1 Beta Unified Messaging (UM) Language Packs allow an Exchange Server 2010 SP1 Beta UM server to speak additional languages to callers and recognize other languages when callers use Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) or when voice messages are transcribed.

You can download the Exchange Server 2010 SP1 Beta Help file here; the individual Exchange Server 2010 SP1 Beta UM Language Packs can be retrieved from this location.

Hosting Deployment Guide for Exchange 2010 SP1 Beta

Posted on June 8, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

In addition to the Exchange 2010 SP1 Beta release yesterday and all the updated related documents and kits, the Hosting Deployment Guide for Exchange 2010 SP1 Beta became available today.

The guide (CHM help file) describes hosting Exchange Server 2010 SP1 in a multi-tenant organization using single installation.

You can download the guide here.

Exchange 2010 SP1 Beta

Posted on June 7, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

This weeked the Exchange team released the public beta of Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.

You can download the Exchange 2010 SP1 Beta here.

For those still unaware, the 500Mb+ file contains the full set of binaries; you can use it to upgrade existing RTM installations but can also deploy new Exchange 2010 SP1 Beta installations.

Note that when you want to install SP1 Beta on an Exchange Server holding the Client Access Server role, on top of Windows Server 2008 R2, you first need to install hotfix 981002 – Windows Communication Foundation in the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. You can download this hotfix here.

With the release of SP1 Beta Microsoft also released updates of the following documents and kits (list might be incomplete):

Exchange Server Active Directory Schema Changes Reference Jun2010. Note that this document and release notes don’t mention “beta”, so I assume the SP1 schema changes contained herein are more or less final;
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP1 Beta Protocol Documentation (v6.0);
Exchange Web Services Managed API 1.1 (Beta);
Exchange Server 2010 SP1 Beta Web Services SDK June 2010;
Exchange Server 2010 SP1 Beta Transport Agents SDK June 2010;
Exchange Server 2010 SP1 Beta Backup and Restore SDK June 2010.

Note: As always with beta code, it is advised to use it on non-production systems only.

Update: The Exchange Team blogged on the Exchange 2010 SP1 Beta availability and confirmed included updates mentioned earlier, e.g. archiving and discovery enhancements, OWA improvements, upgraded mobility features and Management Console improvements. Still no Release Notes though, but the team also mentioned that Exchange 2007 SP3 is imminent.