Preparing Active Directory for Exchange 2013: Running PrepareSchema, PrepareAD, and PrepareDomain

This post will go over how to prepare Active Directory for Exchange 2013.  I will show you how to run the preparation commands on your AD infrastructure.

Before running these commands you will need to be a member of the Schema Admins, Enterprise Admins and Domain Admins groups.

Also, you should note that the prepare commands should be run from the Schema Master DC and to make life easy, you may want to transfer all FSMO roles to the same DC.

To check and transfer roles, please see my post below.

How to transfer FSMO Roles

For more information on what each of these commands performs, please see Planning Active Directory for Exchange 2013: PrepareSchema, PrepareAD and PrepareDomain

How to run PrepareSchema

• Mount the Exchange 2013 DVD on the DC and change to the root of the Disc from Powershell
• Run the following command from an elevated PowerShell prompt
• .\setup.exe /prepareSchema /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms
• The /IAccepExchangeServerLicenseTerms switch must be run for all commands from the Exchange 2013 Disc

• When the /prepareSchema command completes you will see the above output
• This will add the objects for MSExchange to the AD schema

• After the command completes, you will need to be sure that replication has completed throughout the domain before running the next command.

How to run PrepareAD

• Run the following from an elevated PowerShell prompt
• .\setup.exe /prepareAD /OrganizationName:<yourOrganizationName>  /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms

• When /prepareAD completes you will see the Microsoft Exchange Security Groups OU in ADUC

How to run PrepareAllDomains

• Run the following command from an elevated PowerShell prompt
• .\setup.exe /prepareSchema /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms

After these commands complete, you are ready for your first Mailbox Role installation in the Domain.  Again, be sure to allow replication to complete before running the installation.

This concludes Preparing Active Directory for Exchange 2013: Running PrepareSchema, PrepareAD, and PrepareDomain.

I hope this was helpful and informative to you and I would appreciate any feedback you may have.