Installing Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008

This is post is my attempt to bring all the materials of importance I could find about installing Exchange 2007 SP1 onto a Windows 2008 platform into one location. This post will be updated from time to time as new resources are made available.

Known Issues:

Offline Address Book (OAB) Generation Problem (Fixed with Update Rollup 5)
Endless logon prompts when using NTL M authentication (Fixed with Update Rollup 4)
Server 2008 backup is not Exchange aware
- MS is working on a plug-in to remedy this problem.
An in-place upgrade of Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows 2003 to Windows 2008 is NOT supported. You will have to create a brand new server with Windows 2008 and then either use Database Portability or Move-Mailbox to migrate your users.
Antivirus and Backups: It’s important to note that while most Antivirus and Backup platforms now support Exchange 2007 not everyone supports Server 2008. Check with your vendor before committing to a Server 2008 deployment.

Server Software:

Testing

Trial download of Exchange 2007 SP1 available here. The trial software is only available is 32-bit.

Production:

You will need to download a licensed copy of Exchange 2007 SP1 (Std or Ent) 64-bit.

Installation:

Pre-requisites

Install the Exchange pre-requisites according to the guidelines here. This can be done autmatically with these handy XML files found here.

For a new Install simply launch the Setup and perform the install in the same manner as you would with Windows Server 2003.

If you are going to migrate your Exchange 2007 services from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008 you’ll want to take a read this. There are some extra steps that you will need to undertake to ensure all the necessary services are migrated over correctly.

Post-Installation

Hub Transport Server Role fails when IPv6 is disabled on that server - FIXED - If either of these 2 bullets occur, you need to fully disable IPv6 and not just uncheck it. This requires the same fix as the next section which discusses broken Outlook Anywhere.
- If IPv6 is disabled prior to the installation of Exchange Server 2007, when installing the Hub Transport Server role, your Hub Transport Server role will fail to install
- If IPv6 is disabled after the installation of Exchange Server 2007, you may experience some Exchange services failing to start

It appears that for now you will have to disable IP6 on the Exchange Client Access Server. Read more about this problem here, and here. For steps on disabling IP6 on Exchange go here.

(FIXED) Adjust IIS7 authentication to stop endless logon prompts when using Outlook Anywhere with NTLM. Full details on this issue can be found here. The command to execute on the Client Access Server:

%Windows%\inetsrvappcmd.exe set config /section:system.webServer/security/authentication/windowsAuthentication /useKernelMode:false

Note: This issue was fixed with Exchange 2007 SP1 Rollup 4.

That’s about it for now. I’ll update this post from time to time as new information comes available.