Before installing Exchange 2013 for the first time, we recommend that you install it in an isolated test environment. This approach reduces the risk of end-user downtime and negative ramifications to the production environment.

The test environment will act as your “proof of concept” for your new Exchange 2013 design and make it possible to move forward or roll back any implementations before deploying into your production environments. Having an exclusive test environment for validation and testing allows you to do pre-installation checks for your future production environments. By installing in a test environment first, we believe that your organization will have a better likelihood of success in a full production implementation.

For many organizations, the costs of building a test lab may be high because of the need to duplicate the production environment. To reduce the hardware costs associated with a prototype lab, we recommend the use of virtualization by using Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V technologies. Hyper-V enables server virtualization, allowing multiple virtual operating systems to run on a single physical machine.

For more detailed information about Hyper-V, see Server Virtualization. For information about Microsoft support of Exchange 2013 in production on hardware virtualization software, see "Hardware virtualization" in Exchange 2013 System Requirements.

Exchange 2013 is available in three server editions: Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, and Hybrid Edition. These are licensing editions that are defined by a product key. For more information, see Exchange Server Licensing.

You have the following options for Exchange 2013 Setup:

• Exchange Setup UI   Running Setup.exe without any command-line switches provides an interactive experience where you are guided by the Exchange 2013 Setup wizard.
  
  
• Exchange Unattended Setup   Running Setup.exe with command-line switches enables you to install Exchange from an interactive command line or through a script.
  
  

Setup.exe is available from the Exchange 2013 DVD or the downloaded source files.

Setup for Exchange 2013 includes several installation modes:

• Install   Use this mode when you're installing a new server role or adding a server role to an existing installation (maintenance mode). You can use this mode from both the Exchange Setup wizard and the unattended install.
  
  
• Uninstall   Use this mode when you're removing the Exchange installation or removing a single server role from an existing installation (maintenance). You can use this mode from both the Exchange Setup wizard and the unattended install.
  
  
• Upgrade   Select this mode used when you have an existing installation of Exchange and you're installing a service pack. You can use this mode from both the Exchange Setup wizard and the unattended install.
  
  

  Note:
  Exchange 2013 doesn't support in-place upgrades from previous versions of Exchange. This mode is used only to install service packs.

• RecoverServer   Use this mode when there has been a catastrophic failure of a server, and you need to recover data. You must install a server using the same fully qualified domain name (FQDN) as the failed server, and then run Setup with the /m:RecoverServer switch. Don't specify the roles to restore. Setup detects the Exchange Server object in Active Directory and installs the corresponding files and configuration automatically. After you recover the server, you can restore databases and reconfigure any additional settings. To run in RecoverServer mode, you can't have Exchange installed on the server. The Exchange server object must exist in Active Directory. You can only use this mode during an unattended installation.
  
  

Note:
You must complete one mode of Setup before you can use another mode.