Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is the seventh major version of the product. Like its predecessor – Exchange Server 2007 it is running on x64 OS platform and offers integration with your phone system. Even though this version is not revolutionary – some specialists consider it as a major Service Pack to Exchange Server 2007, it brings some important changes and a lot of small improvements.
For many organizations, still running Exchange Server 2003, a leapfrog migration to Exchange Server 2010 would be the best choice, and we will demonstrate it using our Step-by-Step approach.
In this screencast, we will start with the simplest scenario – greenfield installation of Exchange Server 2010 on a Windows Server 2008 R2.
A couple of words about our network configuration – we have three domain controllers, running Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Exchange Server 2010 will be installed on a dedicated Windows 2008 R2 member server.

It is important to run Active Directory Health Check, before you proceed with Exchange Server 2010 installation. You will see how to test and confirm DNS server configuration and health, AD replication and how to generate the necessary reports.
We will go through the process of checking and installing Exchange Server 2010 prerequisites, the actual Exchange installation, and the obligatory post installation Exchange Server validation. The validation includes checking Exchange Setup log, the event viewer messages about MSExchangeSetup, Server roles installation and Exchange Services health status.

Keep in mind, that :
– If you are planning to use this Exchange Server as a member of a DAG (Database Availability Group), you must use Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition – DAG still uses pieces of failover clustering.
– Once you install Exchange 2010 on a Windows Server Standard edition, you cannot upgrade to Windows Server Enterprise Edition.

In addition, you will not be able to install Exchange 2007 at a later time in Exchange 2010 organization if:
– You have a Greenfield environment – never had previous versions of Exchange deployed (as it is in this demo)
– You have transitioned from Exchange 2007 and the last Exchange 2007 has already been decommissioned
– You are planning to transition from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 and you have prepared the AD forest with Exchange setup

For your convenience, we have published the text file with commands which we are using in the Screencast here.

Step 1 In this step, we confirm domain and forest functional levels, and perform DNS and Active Directory health check.

Step 2 We add the required Windows features and prerequisites. Then, we proceed with the actual Exchange Server 2010 installation.

Step 3 Finally, we demonstrate different approaches for validating Exchange Server 2010 installation.