MS Exchange Server 2010 – Part 1

Well here we go, I have been set a new challenge at work and that is to host, configure and maintain a Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.

I set about this by using a demo version, firstly by getting the installation file, that was very easy thanks Google!

I began the installation on our Windows Server 2008, quickly to find there would be a compatibility report and prerequisites I had to get the server to meet before the installation would go ahead, needless to say pending Windows updates is not a good start, so get those out of the way asap, prior to doing any installation.

So the report seems pretty scary at first but you will find that a number of errors will be repeated, one I found in particular was not simple and I actually had to troll forums for information to resolve it, this was not a promising start, fortunately I did get past it. I think the issue was something similar to a “smtp service could not be started”. A great resource and must have membership for any IT professional is for the MS Technet forums, these helped me greatly (thanks to the nice people on there)!

This task has really taken longer than I had hoped, I was really hoping my colleague could have helped more with records that would have to be set up in the DNS part or our hosting configurations, I especially wasn’t expecting to be dealing with manually configuring SSL certificates and even the autodiscover and activesync parts of the exchange configuration.

There is a lot to do once it has been installed and there really there should be some additional wizard to get you going!

Firstly I got the wrong SSL certificate from GODADDY, since my failings they have actually put a note on their SSL shop pages to help you recognize what kind of certificate you will want to buy! Needless to say it was not the cheapest!

If you have to do the same as me and set this up by yourself with limited experience and support, you may as well set this page Test Exchange Connectivity as your homepage, right now!

This tool really is simply the only way to work out what you need to do to finalise your configuration steps and get the whole thing working. Unfortunately it has limited documentation at this stage but if you can post the specifics in the forums on the technet site, your on to a winner!

One other major tip I can give you is if you think your exchange server is working dont just test on the local network, it needs to be tested outside 🙂

I will follow up shortly with some more tech tips on how to get this working!