Exam Essentials

Understand ForestPrep and DomainPrep. If you ‚ re working in single-domain forest, you may likely never need to work with ForestPrep and DomainPrep. Even if this is case, you should not neglect to learn what these powerful setup tools do and what permissions are required to use them. Consider the example of a very large, geographically dispersed network where multiple administrators at various levels work together to manage and maintain the network ‚ in this situation ForestPrep and DomainPrep are invaluable tools that can assist in getting Exchange Server 2003 installed by splitting the installation tasks up according to domain group permissions that have been assigned.

Remember which groups interact with Exchange. Several different domain and local groups interact with Exchange before, during, and after the installation of Exchange is complete. You should keep in mind the basic functions and responsibilities of each of these groups.

Know the limitations on upgrading from Exchange 2000 Server. Recall that Exchange Server 2003 does not support the following Exchange 2000 Server services and components ; thus they must be removed before upgrading an Exchange 2000 Server computer:

• Microsoft Mobile Information Server components

• Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server

• The Instant Messaging service

• The Exchange Chat service

• The Key Management service

• The cc:Mail connector

• The MS Mail connector

Remember the requirements to install Exchange Server 2003. Exchange Server 2003 can be installed on a Windows Server 2003 computer or a Windows 2000 Server Service Pack 3 or later computer. All domain controllers and global catalog servers that the Exchange Server 2003 computer will communicate with must be at least Windows 2000 Server SP3. The hardware requirements listed previously in Table 3.1 are minimums and will likely yield the minimum acceptable performance if used in a production environment.