IgNiTeD SoUL

Managing Exchange is a little different from managing most other Microsoft applications. The computer where you run the tools or scripts must be a member of a domain in the forest where the Exchange organization resides. This is true whether you are using a script or the GUI. Exchange doesn’t allow you to select other organizations to manage. This can be troublesome for someone managing multiple Exchange organizations or a mobile worker who moves between sites or companies and likes to run her workstation in workgroup mode instead of being a member of any specific domain.

Permissions are very important and often misunderstood in Exchange. Permissions can be set up very simply or in a very complicated way; it is tough to find a middle ground. The simplest method is to give your Exchange administrators Domain Admin access. This is pretty standard in small companies where the Exchange admins are doing all aspects of administration. But this practice is usually unacceptable in larger companies where separation of duties and more security is required.

Exchange Server has several software prerequisites that must be installed prior to its installation. You must have these prerequisites in place prior to installing Exchange or Exchange will refuse to install. The prerequisites vary by operating system.

Windows 2000 SP3+ prerequisites:

• Windows Server 2003 Administration Tools Pack (adminpak.msi)
• Internet Information Services (IIS)
• World Wide Web (WWW) Publishing Service
• Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) Service
• Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) Service

Window Server 2003 requires the Windows 2000 prerequisites plus:

• .NET Framework
• ASP.NET