Exchange 2007 for lazy 2003 admins...

Just finished my third Exchange 2007 migration and now I have some pointers I'd like to share with you.

Installation:
Run the Exchange Readiness check before you make an estimate about the amount of work. Exchange makes fairly large changes to your AD and the setup will fail on any issues with the AD.

Make sure you have installed .NET 2.0 and the latest update updates and PowerShell. Also you need to install WWW and IIS common files. Copy the installation files to harddisk before running the setup. The setup from CD fails regularly.

If you are installing on a DC make sure your new server is a GC. Make sure the server is able to contact the DC's it needs by FQDN and by servername. (Especially the schema master.)

You can install Exchange from the command line, first run setup /preparead and setup /preparedomain. Then for a default install, with all normal modes and legacy support (Public Folders) run setup /mode:install /roles:HT,CA,MB,MT /enablelegacyoutlook.

Finalize installation:
- Open Management Console, enter the productkey.
- Open "Organisation Configuration", "Send Connectors" and create a new send connector. Address Space: *, Source Server: this server and use DNS to route mail.
- Open "Server Configuration", open properties for "Default Servername", open "Permission Groups" tab and enable "Anonymous Users". This enables inbound mail flow to this server.

On your old Exchange server:
- Replicate Public Folders, especially Free/Busy if you are going to support older Outlook clients. Check replication with Get-PublicFolderStatistics in PowerShell.

Frequently used CmdLets:
Some configuration work for Exchange 2007 is done in PowerShell. Here are some usefull CmdLets:

Grant a user full permissions on the mailbox DB, for backup or ExMerge:
Add-ADPermission -Identity "Mailbox Database" -User "Domain\Administrator" -extendedrights send-as,receive-as

Grant a user full permissions on all mailboxes:
Get-Mailbox | Add-MailboxPermission -user "Domain\Administrator" -AccessRights FullAccess

More to come!