How to install Exchange Management tools silently

As we support 1500 users we don't manually install anything on PCs. it is all done remotely using, at the moment, Altiris Deployment console (not the nasty web based 7.1 but the rather more pleasent 6.9 with win32 console). We use simple command line stuff to run installers in quiet mode such as MSIs with a /qn or setups with recoreded ini answer files.
Every now and again we come across an installer that either doesn't support silent install or tries to do something stupid at the end like display a read me file, complete Muppetry!
However we often come across stuff that requires prerequistes installed like Exchange 2010 Management tools.
This needs a bunch of Windows features set up in advance, but guess what? The installer knows this but doesn't install them for you and Microsoft doesn't tell you what they are in any documentation or how you should go about installing them, though it does say if you run Setup /r:MT it will install silently, don't believe it, it is all lies.

So what are the prerequisites and how do you script the install?

You need
IIS 6 Management Console
IIS Metabase and IIS 6 configuration compatibilty
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.1

You install them as follows
dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:IIS-WebServerRole
dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:IIS-WebServerManagementTools
dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:IIS-IIS6ManagementCompatibility
dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:IIS-Metabase
dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:IIS-LegacySnapIn

That last one is the IIS 6 Manangement console which is very confusing.

As some of these components need to be enabled before others the order above is important.

You probably have .NET installed already but if you haven't then try
dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFx3

Once installed don't forget to patch your Exchange Tools up to the same level as your servers or your tools may not talk properly to your Exchange environment or you will get errors or failed commands.

I have found that Altiris works better on Windows 7 if you run all jobs under the system account rather than as a named user, this does mean you wil have to free up your permissions on any install shares, other desktop management systems may have other ideas.

DISM is the Deployment Image Servicing Management tool and can be used to add all sorts of stuff to Windows (/Online) or indeed any Windows Image (WIM, /Image) file, I use it to udate our Wim files we use for deployment with new drivers, but that will be covered in another blog.

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