Verifying an Exchange 2007 Installation

Verifying an Exchange 2007 Installa...

Applies to: Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Exchange Server 2007 Topic Last Modified: 2006-12-01

After you install Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, we recommend that you verify the installation and review the server setup logs. If the setup process fails or errors occur during installation, you can use the setup logs to track down the source of the problem. This topic describes the information that is recorded in each setup log and the default location of the setup log files. This topic also describes the folder structure, the tools that are installed, the changes to the Active Directory directory service, and the services that start after you install Exchange 2007.

Verifying Successful Installation

To verify that Exchange 2007 installed successfully, run the Get-ExchangeServer cmdlet in the Exchange Management Shell. A list is displayed of all Exchange 2007 server roles that are installed on the specified server when this cmdlet is run.

Note:
The Edge Transport server role cannot share hardware with another Exchange 2007 server role.

Event Viewer

During installation, Exchange setup logs events in the Application log of Event Viewer on computers that are running Microsoft Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003. Examine the Application log and confirm that there are no warning or error messages related to Exchange server setup.

Setup Log Files

During the setup process, information about the progress of setup is logged in text files. By default, the logging method is set to verbose. These log files contain a history of actions that the system takes during setup and any errors that have occurred.

Table 1 provides information about where you can find the setup logs and the information that they contain. The <system drive> variable represents the root directory of the drive where the operating system is installed.

Table 1 Setup log locations and contents

Location	Contents	Server role
<system drive>\ExchangeSetupLogs\ExchangeSetup.log	This file tracks the progress of every task that is performed during the Exchange 2007 installation and configuration. The file contains information about the status of the prerequisite and system-readiness checks that are performed before installation starts, the application installation progress, and the configuration changes that are made to the system. Check this log file to verify that the server roles were installed as expected.	Hub Transport, Mailbox, Client Access, Unified Messaging, Edge Transport
<system drive>\ExchangeSetupLogs\ExchangeSetup.msilog	This file contains information about the extraction of the Exchange 2007 code from the installer file.	Hub Transport, Mailbox, Client Access, Unified Messaging, Edge Transport

Reviewing the Setup Log Files

The setup log files contain lots of detailed information. Each action that Exchange 2007 Setup takes during installation is written to these files. We recommend that you start to review the log file by using a search for the text string "error". If you find an entry that indicates that an error occurred, you can read the text around it to determine the cause of the error.

You can also use the Get-SetupLog.ps1 script file that is located in the <SystemRoot>\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange\Scripts folder to review setup log information. Use the Exchange Management Shell to run this script and parse the Exchange 2007 setup log. If you programmatically break the information in this file into smaller, related segments, this will help you diagnose setup problems. You must provide the location and name of the file to parse when you use this script.

To use the Exchange Management Shell to parse a setup log file

To generate a list of all events logged during setup in a format that can be sorted or explored in the Exchange Management Shell, type the following command:
```
Get-SetupLog c:\exchangesetuplogs\exchangesetup.log
```
To generate a list of all events logged during setup and present the results in an indented tree format, type the following command:
```
Get-SetupLog c:\exchangesetuplogs\exchangesetup.log -tree
```
To generate a list of only the errors and warnings logged during setup, type the following command:
```
Get-SetupLog c:\exchangesetuplogs\exchangesetup.log -error
```
To generate a list of only the errors and warnings logged during setup and present the results in an indented tree format, type the following command:
```
Get-SetupLog c:\exchangesetuplogs\exchangesetup.log - error -tree
```

Administrative Tools

During installation, the following Exchange 2007 administration interfaces are installed:

The Exchange Management Shell, a command-line interface and associated command-line plug-ins for Exchange Server that enable automation of administrative tasks.
The graphical user interface for the Exchange Management Console. This includes the Toolbox, which is a collection of tools that are installed with Exchange 2007. The Toolbox provides a central location for diagnostic, troubleshooting, and recovery activities.

Configuration Management Tools

The following configuration management tools are available in the Toolbox:

Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer A tool for checking the configuration and health of the Exchange server topology.

Disaster Recovery Tools

Database Recovery Management A tool for managing disaster recovery scenarios.
Database Troubleshooter A tool to help troubleshoot store mounting and other database-related problems.

Mail Flow Tools

Mail Flow Troubleshooter A tool for troubleshooting mail flow and transport-related problems.
Message Tracking A tool for examining message tracking logs.
Queue Viewer A tool for managing Exchange mail queues.

Performance Tools

Performance Monitor A tool for monitoring server performance and overall health.
Performance Troubleshooter A tool for troubleshooting server performance problems.

Note:
When you select the Database Recovery Management, Performance Troubleshooter, Mail Flow Troubleshooter, or Message Tracking tools, the Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant opens.

Active Directory Changes

Changes to the Active Directory schema are written to the Active Directory database during the Active Directory schema preparation phase of setup. For a complete list of the Exchange 2007 attributes that are written to the schema, see Active Directory Schema Changes.

The Active Directory security groups that are used to administer the Exchange organization are created in the forest root domain during the Active Directory domain preparation phase of setup. This phase of setup creates an organizational unit specifically for holding the Exchange security groups: Microsoft Exchange Security Groups. All the security groups are created as Universal Security Groups. The members of security groups that have this scope can be users, global groups, or other universal groups from any domain in the forest. For more information about the groups that are created, their default membership, and the permissions that are granted to those groups, see Permission Considerations.

Folder Structure

The default installation path for Exchange 2007 is C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server. In Table 2, the default installation path is represented as <installation path>. If you modify this path during installation, <installation path> represents your custom installation location. Table 2 describes the default top-level folder structure. Each of these folders may contain subfolders.

Table 2 Folder structure for a default installation of Exchange 2007

File path of folder	Contents of folder	Server role
<installation path>\bin	Applications and extensions that are used for management of Exchange Server.	Mailbox, Hub Transport, Edge Transport, Client Access, Unified Messaging
<installation path>\ClientAccess	Configuration files for the Client Access server role. This folder includes the subfolders Autodiscover, Exchweb, Owa, PopImap, and Sync. Each of these subfolders contains the configuration files for the associated Client Access features.	Client Access
<installation path>\ExchangeOAB	The Exchange offline address book data.	Client Access
<installation path>\Logging	Log files.	Mailbox, Hub Transport, Edge Transport. Client Access, Unified Messaging
<installation path>\Mailbox	Schema files, .dll files, and database and log files for the mailbox databases and public folder databases created during setup. This folder contains the subfolders Addresses, First Storage Group, MDB Temp, OAB, and Schema. Each of these folders contains configuration and data files.	Mailbox
<installation path>\Public	XML files and drivers that are used for address lookup and header processing during transport.	Edge Transport, Hub Transport
<installation path>\Scripts	Exchange Management Shell scripts that are used for automating tasks.	Mailbox, Hub Transport, Edge Transport, Client Access, Unified Messaging
<installation path>\Setup	This folder contains the subfolders Data and Perf. Each of these folders contains XML files and data that are required to configure Exchange 2007.	Mailbox, Hub Transport, Edge Transport, Client Access, Unified Messaging
<installation path>\TransportRoles	This folder contains the subfolders Agents, Data, Logs, Pickup, Replay, and Shared. The Pickup and Replay folders are used for specific mail-flow scenarios. All data logged by transport servers will appear in the Logs folder. The Agents folder contains the binary files associated with agents. The Shared folder contains the agent configuration files. The Data folder contains the IP filtering database. This is the database where the IP Allow List entries and IP Block List entries used by the Connection Filter agent are stored, and the queue database.	Hub Transport, Edge Transport
<installation path>\UnifiedMessaging	This folder contains the subfolders AdministrativeTools, Badvoicemail, Common, Config, Doc, Grammars, Logs, Prompts, Speech, Voicemail, and WebService. These folders contain the configuration and setup files for Unified Messaging and speech recognition, and script files. They also provide a storage location for voicemail.	Unified Messaging

Service Configuration

During the installation of Exchange 2007, Setup runs a set of tasks that install the servers that are required by each server role to perform its functions. For more information, see Services Installed by Exchange Setup.

Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer

To complete your verification of a successful installation, it is a best practice to run the Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer. The Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer automatically examines an Exchange Server deployment and determines whether the configuration is set according to Microsoft best practices. After you install or upgrade Exchange, or after you make configuration changes, we recommend that you run the Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer. You can run the Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer from the Toolbox in the Exchange Management Console.

For More Information

For more information about how to complete an Exchange 2007 deployment, see the following topics: