More on the Exchange 12 Beta

The Exchange 12 Beta installation is simple and somewhat
elegant. It doesn’t ask you to install Forest Prep or Domain Prep – it just has
a step where it does it. You can configure your Exchange 12 server to perform
several functions: Gateway, Bridgehead, Client Access, Mailbox, and Unified
Messaging. Gateway is not compatible with the other functions, since it’s
supposed to operate outside the Exchange org, screening and securing your
messages. Thus the metaphors from current Exchange parlance have changed –
Front-End has become Client Access, for instance.

Once you’ve installed the beta, there are four items
installed under the Microsoft Exchange folder in the start menu:

1. Exchange
   Console Manager, which replaces the Exchange System Manager
2. Exchange
   Server 12 Help, the sole source of documentation, even documenting parts
   of the ECM that haven’t been implemented yet.
3. Exchange
   Queue Viewer, a really fast way to check your mail queues.
4. Exchange
   Management Shell: A DOS box in which you can enter commands to manage your
   Exchange 12 environment. If you’re not comfortable at the command line,
   don’t try the Beta, because there are many things you can’t configure any
   other way. On the other hand, it’s still simpler than trying to edit Sendmail’s
   config.cf directly.

<>The new Exchange is still missing a lot of the management we’ve
grown to love and hate in E2K and E2K3, such as mailbox management, graphic management
of connectors, and the like, but it has great potential. What I’d like to play
with is push wireless messaging to smartphones – there’s even a wireless device
manager panel in Exchange 12 OWA – but I don’t have a smartphone and don’t know
if Verizon Wireless can hook me up yet.