Running and modifying Exchange Server 2013 Setup (part 2) -Verifying and completing the installation

You can verify that Exchange Server 2013 installed successfully by running the Get-ExchangeServer cmdlet in Exchange Management Shell. This command displays a list of all Exchange 2013 server roles that are installed on a specified server.

During installation, Exchange Setup logs events in the Application log of Event Viewer. You can review the Application log to make sure there are no warning or error messages related to Exchange setup. Typically, these events have event IDs 1003 and 1004, with the source as MSExchangeSetup.

You also can learn more about the installation by reviewing the setup log file created during the setup process. This log file is stored in the %SystemDrive%\ExchangeSetupLogs folder with the name ExchangeSetup.log. The %SystemDrive% variable represents the root directory of the drive where the operating system is installed. Because these logs contain standard text, you can perform a search using the keyword error to find any setup errors that occurred.

As discussed previously, Setup must be able to contact Active Directory. If Setup is unable do this, errors will be logged and the Exchange organization will not be prepared properly. In the following example, Setup couldn’t validate the state of Active Directory and couldn’t locate a domain controller:

[06/02/2013 20:18:31.0253] [0] Setup is choosing the domain controller
to use
[06/02/2013 20:18:42.0630] [0] Setup is choosing a local domain
controller…
[06/02/2013 20:18:45.0033] [0] [ERROR] Setup encountered a problem while
validating the state of Active Directory: Could not find any Domain
Controller in domain pocket-consultant.com.
[06/02/2013 20:18:45.0158] [0] [ERROR] Could not find any Domain Controller
in domain pocket-consultant.com.
[06/02/2013 20:18:45.0205] [0] [ERROR] Domain controller not found in the
domain "pocket-consultant.com".
[06/02/2013 20:18:45.0205] [0] Setup will use the domain controller ''.
[06/02/2013 20:18:45.0205] [0] Setup will use the global catalog ''.
[06/02/2013 20:18:45.0955] [0] No Exchange configuration container was
found for the organization. Message: 'Could not find any Domain Controller
in domain pocket-consultant.com.'.

Because of this problem, Setup didn’t fully prepare the organization and had problems configuring the Mailbox role: Transport service and the other services as well. With Exchange 2013 RTM, the scripts for setup waited for up to 40 minutes during the Mailbox role: Transport service configuration, while continuously checking and eventually timing out. Setup took much longer than usual, but did continue all the way to completion. Although this long wait was an indicator of a problem, later updates to Setup for Cumulative Update 1 and beyond removed the waits, so there are no longer long lags that may indicate a problem.

When Setup is able to validate the state of Active Directory, the log records a very different set of events as shown in the following example:

[06/02/2013 20:40:07.0115] [0] Setup is choosing the domain controller
to use
[06/02/2013 20:40:14.0135] [0] Setup is choosing a local domain
controller…
[06/02/2013 20:40:24.0729] [0] Setup has chosen the local domain controller
CorpServer24.pocket-consultant.com for initial queries
[06/02/2013 20:40:24.0885] [0] PrepareAD has either not been run or has not
replicated to the domain controller used by Setup. Setup will attempt to
use the Schema Master domain controller CorpServer24.pocket-consultant.com
[06/02/2013 20:40:24.0885] [0] The schema master domain controller is
available
[06/02/2013 20:40:24.0901] [0] The schema master domain controller is in
the local domain; setup will use CorpServer24.pocket-consultant.com
[06/02/2013 20:40:24.0901] [0] Setup is choosing a global catalog…
[06/02/2013 20:40:24.0917] [0] Setup has chosen the global catalog server
CorpServer24.pocket-consultant.com.
[06/02/2013 20:40:24.0932] [0] Setup will use the domain controller
'CorpServer24.pocket-consultant.com'.
[06/02/2013 20:40:24.0932] [0] Setup will use the global catalog
'CorpServer24.pocket-consultant.com'.
[06/02/2013 20:40:24.0948] [0] No Exchange configuration container was
found for the organization. Message: 'Could not find the Exchange
Configuration Container'.

Here, Setup was able to select a domain controller to work with, locate the schema master, and choose a global catalog server. Note that Setup reports that PrepareAD was not run or replicated and that no Exchange configuration container was found. This is normal for a new installation of Exchange 2013. Shortly after validating the state of Active Directory, Setup will determine the organization-level operations to perform. For a new installation of Exchange 2013, related entries should look similar to the following:

[06/02/2013 20:40:26.0339] [0] Setup is determining what organization-level
operations to perform.
[06/02/2013 20:40:26.0339] [0] Setup has detected a missing value. Setup is
adding the value PrepareSchema.
[06/02/2013 20:40:26.0339] [0] Setup has detected a missing value. Setup is
adding the value PrepareOrganization.
[06/02/2013 20:40:26.0339] [0] Setup has detected a missing value. Setup is
adding the value PrepareDomain.

Here, Setup reports that it will prepare the Active Directory schema, the Exchange organization, and the domain.

To complete the installation for an initial deployment of Exchange into an organization, you need to perform the following tasks:

The Exchange Server 2013 installation process uses Windows Installer. Using Windows Installer helps to streamline and stabilize the installation process, and it makes modification of installation components fairly easy. Thanks to Windows Installer, you can install additional roles by re-running Setup from media or the download folder and resume a failed installation or modification simply by re-running Exchange Setup.

Although Exchange Setup doesn’t allow you to remove individual roles from a server, you can use the options on the Programs And Features page under Control Panel, Programs to uninstall Exchange Server. To do this, follow these steps:

Before you can remove the Mailbox role from a server, you must move or delete all mailboxes hosted in mailbox databases on the server and all offline address books hosted in public folders.