A short video has been uploaded to share you the process of installing Microsoft Exchange Server 2016. The video gives you an idea about preparing a new infrastructure for Exchange Server 2016, however you might need to work on understanding the co-existence scenario.

If you have not gone through the earlier articles including the installation guide, please do so to understand in detail.

Step by Step Installation Guide – Exchange Server 2016, preview version

Exchange Server 2016 Architecture, farewell to CAS role

Meet Exchange Server 2016 - Microsoft Ignite 2015

 Your experiences are important to me, therefore please do not forget to share through the comments.

 -Praveen

I have tried to make it simple on how to install your first Exchange Server 2016 on a Windows Server 2012 r2 infrastructure.

My Lab,

One Domain Controller (Windows Server 2008 r2 Std), and the functional level is Windows 2008 r2 (you may chose 2012 as well). – DC1

One Member Server (Windows Server 2012 r2 Std) – EX1

Domain Name is ed.com (I used short form of ExchangeDictionary.com)

Once you added the EX1 server into domain, you have 2 following options to install the exchange pre-requisites.

- Use the exchange installation wizard and select the option “Automatically install Windows Server roles and features that are required to install Exchange Server”

- Manually install the pre-requisites and start the Exchange installation wizard.

I recommend you to follow the first option, which will ensure all required roles are installed and the easiest between the two.

Download the required software’s before we start the actual installation process.

Exchange Server 2016: Download Microsoft Exchange Server 2016 - Preview

Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 4.0, Core Runtime 64-bit: Download

.NET Framework 4.5.2: Download

Installation Guide

Note: Please note that, I use a fresh AD and Exchange infra and hence you would not see any co-existing scenarios in this article.

Stage1

Start the Exchange installation wizard (Extract the EXE downloaded from MS Download site)

Double click the setup application from the extracted folder, and follow the initial wizard and accept the EULA (End User License Agreement) and click Next to continue.

At the Recommended Settings section, select “Don’t use recommended settings” and click Next to continue.

Next screen will ask you for the Server Role Selection, select Mailbox role and ensure that you selected “Automatically install Windows Server roles and features that are required to install Exchange Server” option at the bottom and click Next to continue.

Follow the wizard and ensure you have chosen correct option & values in the following screens,

- Installation space and Location

- Specify the Name for this Exchange Organization (I entered as ExchangeDictionay)

The wizard will now install the required server roles and features automatically. Wait for the process to complete until you get Readiness Check result. The result page will display many errors and warning. You may safely ignore the errors & warning, because many roles and feature requires a server restart.

Before you initiate the server restart, please run the following command to add the “Server Media Foundation” feature (this feature does not get installed automatically, let’s hope that MS update the process in the full release).

Run “Install-WindowsFeature server-media-foundation” from Windows PowerShell

Initiate a server restart to continue the Exchange Server installation wizard.

Stage2

Once the server is restarted, please install the following applications/software which are download earlier,

Restart the Server once again to finalize the setup process.

Stage3

By now you have completed installing all the required pre-requisites for installing Exchange Server 2016. Please start the Exchange Server 2016 installation wizard again from the extracted folder.

Follow the wizard exactly we did it in the stage1.

You will see a clean “Readiness Checks” result, and it is all set to continue the installation. Click on Install button to continue the installation process.

Sit back and relax, the process will take approximately 40 minutes to complete and again depends on the server configuration you use. Restart the server once the wizard successfully finishes the installation process and Open your Exchange Administration Console.

More articles to follow, stay connected in Facebook, Linked IN & twitter.

-Praveen

As communnicated by MS, the preview version of Exchange Server 2016 is now available for download. Get your hands dirty with the new version of Exchange and share the experiences.

Download Microsoft Exchange Server 2016 - Preview

The fillowing articles are shared earlier in view of new features n Exchange Server 2016, go through then if you have not done so earlier.

Exchange Server 2016 Architecture, farewell to CAS role

http://www.exchangedictionary.com/news/a-first-look-at-exchange-server-2016

Interested in reading more before download, please refer Announcing Exchange Server 2016 Preview!

-Praveen

As you are aware, by November 2015, the 3^rd party SSL providers will stop supporting the internal domain names if you don’t own them publically. For example, if you use domain.local as internal domain, then please be aware that the 3^rd party CAs will stop issuing certificates with these internal names with effect from November 2015. In simple words, you can only get SSL certificates for the domains you own publically as each domain names included in the SSL certificate should be validated against the domain ownership.

Ref: https://cabforum.org/wp-content/uploads/Guidance-Deprecated-Internal-Names.pdf

In order or to avoid service break down, you must reconfigure the internal service URLs to be trusted with a publically trusted domain OR you should use an Enterprise CA SSL for the internal service URL.

The later configuration, in my opinion, is bit more complicated because it would lead you to create separate traffic rules for internal and external messaging client. So, I suggest you to create a split DNS internally and reconfigure the Exchange internal URLs with the publically trusted domains so that to ensure smooth transition during this phase out period. Reconfiguring internal URL with publically trusted domain can also help reduce the number of SAN used in your SSL certificate.

This article is specifically focused on the areas where you need to keep an eye on reconfiguring the internal service URLs of Exchange 2010, this can be also used to reconfigure the version Exchange Server 2007 and 2013.

The following services are to be reconfigured to bring them in line with the new SSL standards,

1. Autodiscover
2. EWS (Exchange Web Services)
3. OAB (Offline AddressBook)
4. OWA and ECP (Exchange Control Panel and Outlook Web Access)
5. Outlook anywhere
6. Exchange Active Sync

Before you proceed, please ensure that you have done all pre-requisites for split DNS configuration. Because once you reconfigure the URLs, the traffic will be diverted to publically trusted domain. Not using a split DNS will cause the client to reach external lookup find the services.

Find the commands to reconfigure in order with the above services,

Note: My external domain is exchangedictionary.com, for this exercise. Please replace it with your externally trusted domain. I assume that you already have the external URLs set with externally trusted domain.

Set-ClientAccessServer -Identity EXH1 -AutoDiscoverServiceInternalUri “https://autodiscover.exchangedictionary.com/Autodiscover/Autodiscover.xml”

Set-WebServicesVirtualDirectory -Identity "EXH1\EWS (Default Web Site)" -InternalUrl “https://email.exchangedictionary.com/ews/exchange.asmx”

Set-OabVirtualDirectory -Identity "EXH1\OAB (Default Web Site)" -InternalUrl "http://email.exchangedictionary.com/OAB"

Set-OwaVirtualDirectory – identity “EXH1\owa (Default Web Site)” –InternalUrl “https://email.exchangedictionary.com/owa”

Set-EcpVirtualDirectory -identity “EXH1\ecp (Default Web Site)” –InternalUrl “https://email.exchangedictionary.com /ecp”

Set-ActiveSyncVirtualDirectory -identity “EXH1\Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync (Default Web Site)” –InternalUrl “https://email.exchangedictionary.com /Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync”

Additional Informations:

• Usually an IIS reset would apply these changes to the infrastructure, however I had to restart few servers (not all) to replicate the changes to clients.
• You may use fiddler to test the client traffic to ensure there are not host name specific URLs are being requested.

Ref URLs,

https://cabforum.org/wp-content/uploads/Guidance-Deprecated-Internal-Names.pdf

https://www.digicert.com/internal-names.htm

https://www.digicert.com/internal-domain-name-tool.htm

-Praveen