This weekend I decided to install Exchange 2013 in the lab. A number of things I am working on in the Lab require email capabilities and I wanted to see what the new version has to offer.

I installed a new VM with Windows Server 2012, joined it to the domain, ran the installer then I came across this error:

Error:
The Active Directory schema isn’t up-to-date, and this user account isn’t a member of the ‘Schema Admins’ and/or ‘Enterprise Admins’ groups.
For more information, visit: http://technet.microsoft.com/library(EXCHG.150)/ms.exch.setupreadiness.SchemaUpdateRequired.aspx

install error

Now this error didn’t make a lot of sense to me as I knew I was a member of the ‘Schema Admins’ & Enterprise Admins’ Groups, but the installer kept repeating the same error. I tried to install under the default Enterprise Admin account and running setup.exe /preparead, but nothing worked. This was the first Exchange server in a new domain so I assumed it didn’t like the fact the domain wasn’t prepared.

For a work around I installed just the management tools first. This ran the setup.exe /preparead properly.

setup completed

Next I went to AD and added my user to the ‘Organisation Management’ group.

Make sure you check Advanced Features to view the Exchange groups

Make sure you check Advanced Features to view the Exchange groups

Now I went back to my server and ran the installer again selecting  both ‘Client Access’ & ‘Mailbox’ roles. I no longer got the ‘Schema Admins’ error.

prereqs

Finally I need to download the UCMA runtime and the Office 2010 Filter packs.
After installation the prerequisites were satisfied and I could finally install Exchange!
setup completed

I don’t know about you, but that seemed a pain for such a simple task? I thought installing Exchange was supposed to be getting easier?

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