How To Plan, Install, Manage, Maintain, Secure, Backup and Restore Small Business Server 2003 R2
Part Four - Installation
Please see what the Legal Eagles Make us say Here.Before installing your first SBS server, be
prepared to install it more than once. SBS is a complicated product, made "simple" by the scripted installation process, but there are a few decision points along the way that are best experienced in a trial installation before implementing the final production server.
The installation steps do not change regardless if you install from
scratch and setup users afterwards, or if you do either of the
documented migrations. You just interrupt the installation to do the migration steps, then resume in the normal way More info on migrations can be found here and here.
- Take a deep breath and Relax
- Count the CD's. Make sure you have a complete set for your installation. Of course, if you have a DVD, this doesn't matter.
- Review the first 2000 <g> pages of this document... make notes, notice the decision/break points
- Connect all the computer parts...
- Disconnect the UPS data cable from the server computer for the duration, until you have a completely working system. There have been cases where SBS causes the UPS to switch to battery power, and if you are low on battery it will all shut down..
- Attach the primary network card to a switch/hub/router. Make sure it is powered on.
- Attach the second network card to the router/cable-DSL modem, but disconnect them from the internet/wall. We don't want bad things getting into the system while we are installing it.
- Make sure any DNS servers or DHCP servers on any device your SBS can find are turned off.
- If using anything other than on board IDE or SATA adapters, you will either have, or have to make, a driver for your storage sub-system. Usually you do this from the CD that came with the adapter. If your chosen server did not come with a floppy, you must either one, get a USB floppy drive, or create a slip streamed installation CD.
- Take another deep breath, power on the computer, enter the bios and set the system to boot from the cd/dvd. System will restart.
Phase One - about 60 Minutes
- Insert and boot from SBS CD1 or DVD
- Press F6 (or not) to install storage drivers that you prepared ahead
of time.
- Setup is loading files and drivers
- Setup is starting Windows (still in text mode)
- Enter to install
- Read, then F8 to Agree to EULA (End User License Agreement)
- Delete old partitions, if any. Or keep the ones you want.
- Create new OS/Boot "C:\" partition. As of Summer 2007 the recommended partition size is about 25 GB. Bigger is no problem.
- Format NTFS (very important) and Windows Setup proceeds:
- Setup is coping files (still in text mode, yellow progress bar)
- Please wait while Windows initializes your Windows configuration
- REBOOT with a 15 second countdown and a red progress bar.
- Do not boot from cd/dvd second time. Boot from hard drive.
- Windows Graphical Portion starts: Grey GUI with bullets on left, info
on right.
- Fill in the User Name, Company, and Product License Code
- Set the time zone
- Setup resumes and finishes on its own, reboots the computer
- Do NOT remove the CD, set bios to start from preferred device,
floppy or hard drive.
End of Phase One - Approximately 60 minutes.
Phase Two - Approximately 30 minutes.
- System restarts, installs a very small bit of code from CD1. Leave
the CD in the drive, there is more.
- If you allow it to continue it will most likely error on not
finding a Network Adapter (NIC)
- Cancel the installation here as soon as the "Continue Setup" icon appears on the desktop
- Using the driver CD that came with your server hardware, install
all the missing drivers.
- Check the Device Manger and the Event Viewer for errors. Clear
these up and reboot. Repeat as necessary
- At this point I open disk management and reassign the drive letter
of the CD/DVD. I use R (for rom), and then use REGEDIT to search for the
CDR drive letter, usually D:\ and change it to R:\. There are about 6 of these changes at this point, but many more if you go any further.
- Still in disk manager partition and NTFS format balance of drive(s)
according to your desired partition scheme.
- Assign what ever drive letters you like, but they are just letters. I suggest writing them down in your documentation journal. You do have a documentation journal, don't you?
- If you are not satisfied with what you have done, do it again: look
Comments about Hard Drives for partition recommendations.
End Phase Two - Approximately 30 minutes.
Phase Three - Approximately 60 Minutes.
- Finally you get to resume setup. Just click the desktop icon, resume setup.
- Fill out the information screens, next
- Put in the Administrators Password for automating setup reboots
- DNS names and IP address will be suggested.
IP: I recommend using the MS default IP of 192.168.16.2. Only because if you do this you will have a standard installation that any SBS consultant and MS Product Support Services will recognize. If you have extensive experience or strong reasons to use a different IP address, and are comfortable with your decision, go ahead and use a different one. If you are not sure, use the default.
Name: DO NOT use .com. or whatever your public website extension will be. This will avoid the confusion that is created when you send mail to your local domain members and they have the same domain name extension or Fully Qualified Domain Name as what the internet expects.
Do not reference the name "domain", as in jsmith@domain.com, or jsmith@domain.lan. Windows Server 2000 and 2003 block this name.
Use .local ONLY if you are sure you will never have a MAC OS xx.xx on your LAN. I use .lan, hoping that will never be on the MS blocked list.
If there is the slightest chance that your company might be acquired or split, it may be a good idea to use generic names such as Company for your domain and SBServer01 for your server name. Otherwise you will have to flatten and reinstall your SBS server to effect a name change.
Note that there are a few cases where it might be desirable to use.com in your domain name. If yours is one, you will know why. If you don't know why you would want to use .com instead of .lan or .office, then don't do it.
- Setup continues with CD1, as much as 30 minutes and automatically reboots
End of Phase Three - Approximately 60 minutes.
Phase Four - Approximately 90 minutes.
- The Component Selection screen appears. The only one that I routinely deselect is the Fax Server, since I very often don't have a fax modem on the server. You can deselect any of these that you wish, but there is no reason to have a Small Business Server if you do not install these components.
- You will be prompted to select the installation location for all of the components. Using the arrow keys, move over to the drive letter for example, C:\exchange\mdbdata, and change the C to a D or E or your preference. DO NOT choose a drive letter in the lower part of the selection box, as this will erase the rest of the path.
- The concept of what partitions, how many, and what size is a discussion unto itself. I recommend at least two, one for the OS and one for data. Look here for a detailed discussion.
- After it finishes CD1, about 30 minutes, it will prompt for CD2, and install exchange in accordance with the path you assigned above. This is about 60 minutes. Setup will "expand the schema" meaning that it will add the fields and designators to AD that it needs to contain all the additional information that Exchange requires, then install exchange.
- After finishing with CD2 and exchange, Setup prompts for CD3 and installs the balance of Exchange and the rest of the services without intervention.
End of Phase Four - Approximately 90 Minutes
Congratulations..... you have just installed the Standard Portions of SBS 2003 on your server hardware and you now have an SBS Server Standard.
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