Is ForestPrep necessary?

[mandg]

I'm in the process of setting up Exchange 2003 on MS Server 2003 and I ran into a barrier with the forestprep utility. I get an 'access denied' error near the end and have tried several recommended fixes to no avail. My question is, can I skip this and continue on with the install or will I have problems later?

This is a single exchange server with a single DC/AD server, and a single DNS server. So I'm thinking that there's really not much of a 'forest' to prep anyhow. No?

 

[SteveMCSE]

You can NOT install Exchange 2000 or 2003 into a forest that has not had Forest prep run. You must use an account that is a member of the forest root's Schema Admins group to run Forest prep. You need only run Forest prep 1 time per forest. Each Domain that you install Exchange onto must have Domain prep run. You must use an account that is a member of the domain's schema admins group to run Domain prep. Domain prep needs to be run only 1 time per domain even if multiple Exchange servers are going to be run.

Forest prep and Domain prep make changes to the Active Directory Schema. Those changes are completely neccessary for an Exchange installation. User accounts won't be able to have mailbox attributes if the attributes aren't in the schema. There are many other things that rely on it other than user accounts, but this is just an example.

You will get "access denied" if you are trying to do forest prep with an account that is not a member of the forest root's schema admins group.

Steve
Systems Engineer

 

[david817]

I agree with steve it is a fairly simple setup if you follow the wizards and do evrything according to instructions Dave

 

[mandg]

Thanks guys- I actually had to put this project on the back-burner since management's talking about moving the office now :-(