Hi, Our parent domain say contoso.com has a Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2003 servers in place. So the forest and the child domain is already prepared. Recently we build a new child domain as us.contoso.com and want to install Exchange 2010 server in this child domain. Just wondering how should I prepare this domain? Should I use domain admin account from contoso.com to prepare the child domain or use Domain admin account from us.contoso.com to prepare it? Do I still need to run setup /ps, setup /p, setup /pd?

From a Command Prompt window, run one of the following commands: Run setup /PrepareDomain or setup /pd to prepare the local domain. You don't need to run this in the domain where you ran Step 3. Running setup /PrepareAD prepares the local domain. Run setup /PrepareDomain:<FQDN of domain you want to prepare> to prepare a specific domain. Run setup /PrepareAllDomains or setup /pad to prepare all domains in your organization. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125224.aspx Mike Crowley Check out My Blog!

From: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125224.aspx To run setup /PrepareDomain, if the domain that you're preparing existed before you ran setup /PrepareAD, you must be a member of the Domain Admins group in the domain. If the domain that you're preparing was created after you ran setup /PrepareAD, you must be a member of the Exchange Organization Administrators group, and you must be a member of the Domain Admins group in the domain.Tim Harrington | MVP: Exchange | MCITP: EMA 2007/2010, MCITP: Lync 2010, MCITP: Server 2008, MCTS: OCS | Blog: http://HowDoUC.blogspot.com | Twitter: @twharrington

Any update?Gulab | MCTS-MCITP Messaging: 2010 | MCTS-MCITP Messaging: 2007 | MCC 2011 | Skype: Gulab.Mallah

I tried to run setup /preparedomain:us.contoso.com from the parent domain with parent domain admin account and got following errors:... Configuring Microsoft Exchange Server Prepare Domain Progress FAILED The following error was generated when "$error.Clear(); if ($RolePrepareAllDomains) { initialize-DomainPermissions -AllDomains:$true -CreateTenantRoot:( $RoleIsDatacenter -or $RoleIsPartnerHosted); } elseif ($RoleDomain -ne $null) { initialize-DomainPermissions -Domain $RoleDomain -CreateTenantRoot :($RoleIsDatacenter -or $RoleIsPartnerHosted); } else { initialize-DomainPermissions -CreateTenantRoot:($RoleIsDatacenter -or $RoleIsPartnerHosted); } " was run: "Object reference not set to an instance of an object.".

Did you ran setup.com /preparead before running Setup.com /preparedomain?Gulab | MCTS-MCITP Messaging: 2010 | MCTS-MCITP Messaging: 2007 | MCC 2011 | Skype: Gulab.Mallah

Do I need to run setup /preparead again? I have already ran this during setup Exchange 2010 in parent domain contoso.com.

This still doesnt answer my question, should I use US\administrator to prepare the child domain or better prepare it with contoso\administrator?

This still doesnt answer my question as which domain admin account I should used? US\Administrator or Contoso\administrator?

Tim has specified this already and posted the link. As this is a new domain AFTER you had already deployed Exchange (i.e already done the schema and parent domain). You now have to run setup /PrepareAD, you must be a member of the Exchange Organization Administrators group, and you must be a member of the Domain Admins group in the domain (us.contoso.com) Sukh

You can use cild domain admin account only make sure it is member of the Schema Admins group and the Enterprise Admins group.Anil

OK, the error I posted early has this half I missed " was run: "PrepareDomain for domain nz has partially completed. Becaus e of your Active Directory site configuration, you must wait for forest-wide rep lication to complete, and then run PrepareDomain for nz again.". So it basically says I have to wait for the forest wide replication to complete... Which I did, wait for couple days now, still having the same error... Not sure what's the possible cause here.

Have you verified your AD replication is working for all domain, root and child? I would actually get this verified first. Sukh

The error is due to no GC present in the site. After rectified that, i am having a new issue which says AD error 0x51 something... mostly due to some of my DCs not been demoted gracefully. This is a test lab environment.. I will start from scratch again.

Seems like this issues you've been having in this thread have been AD related. I would sort these out first then verify AD replication, run the ADBPA and then consider installing Exchange. Sukh