Exchange 2003 Setup Program Does Not Display the Installation Type Screen After You Run the /Forestprep Switch

When you run the Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Setup program (Setup) with the /forestprep switch for the first time in a forest that has had no previous Exchange installations, you do not see the Installation Type screen that displays the following options:

• Create a new organization
• Join or upgrade an existing Exchange 5.5 organization

A change has been made to Setup in Exchange 2003 so that after you run Forestprep, the user who installs the first Exchange 2003 server does not see the Installation Type screen. Instead, the Installation Type screen is deferred to the setup session when the first Exchange 2003 server joins the forest.

In Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server, if you run the setup.exe /forestprep command, Setup prompts the user to choose the installation type. Exchange 2000 Setup may require the user to have schema administrator permissions, Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 administration rights, or both. In Exchange 2003, if you run Forestprep to extend the schema, the user is only required to have schema administrator permissions. Exchange 2003 Setup modifies the schema and creates the following placeholder organization object if one does not already exist in the Active Directory directory service:


In this distinguished name, "dc=domain,dc=com" reflects the X500 format of the forest root domain.

The placeholder organization object is renamed according to the response that you give to the Installation Type screen when the first Exchange 2003 server is installed.

• If you choose Create a new Exchange organization, Setup renames the placeholder organization object to a user-input value.
• If you choose Join or upgrade an existing Exchange 5.5 organization, Setup renames the placeholder object to be the same as the display name of the Exchange 5.5 organization.
• If a named organization object already exists because of an existing Exchange 2000 organization, Setup does not display the Installation type screen and does not change the placeholder organization object name.

This behavior is by design.