ecrocombe

Hello there and thank you everyone in advance for helping me.

Scenario:
Exchange 2003 was standing on its last legs after being deployed for over a year and was in a critical state.
The same server is also a web server, database server, domain controller, file server, DHCP, DNS, WINS and on top of that its a terminal server. there is no other server in the network and its serving only 5 clients. The computer handles it quite nicely actually (beleive it or not).

The business is tolerable of down time for a day or 2 but after that they get ropable.

So instead of doing a backyard blitz on the server (format and start from scratch) i decided to just reinstall exchange.

Everything went fine untill installing again, after i agree to the licence i go to select what i want to install (in this case i used the drop down box and clicked on typical) it then says "To install the first Exchange server in a domain, or to run setup in /forestprep mode, you must be an exhcange administrator at the organisation level. you must use an account that has been granted the full exchange administrator role on the exchange organization using the exchange administrative delegation wizard."

and there's the brick wall.
i'm using the same account as was the previous "full exhcange administrator"

I have tried running forestprep and got the same message but i was able to run the domainprep fine.

Any ideas would be appreciated

Regards
Edward Crocombe

Cellus

Is that account an exchange administrator for the entire forest, or just that particular domain? I'm guessing it is just the latter, especially if domainprep works but forestprep does not.

ecrocombe

Yes it was the forest admin account but i think some how during the uninstall of exchange those rights have been removed.

I have just delegated full control in active directory for the whole forest (right clicked on AD sites and services snap-in) and stil no luck

sstrang

You can't give that account full control if you don't have the permissions to do that. Its like trying to unring the bell. If you don't have forest admin permissions then you can't grant them to somebody. You are probably looking at a reinstall of the whole thing, including the operating system.

ecrocombe

yes im afraid its looking that way unfortunatly. i checked and i am the forest admin? i do have the highest possible permission on this forest/domain/server but yet i still get this message when i try to install. exchange is a creature of its own!

sstrang

What else is new? Exchange is always problematic. Just because it says that you have those permissions doesn't mean that it applies in a practical sense. My advise would be to just bite the bullet and get it over with.

ecrocombe

Yeh sounds like that's going to have to be the plan.

Thank you Very much Cellus and sstrang for you responces.

dubmasta

Solution:

use ADSI edit to edit the schema and
remove the following entry:

CN=Configuration

> CN=Services
> CN=Microsoft Exchange

restart the server and install
(ADSI is part of the server tools, install server 2003 tools)

Luda

+1

although a full install might be worth while, but its a decent bit of work

azuziel

just a thought, but the exchange account you are using does have domain admin rights for the domain yes?