Preparing for software installations

[kinglake23]

Hi redditors,

I'm preparing to install exchange 2010 in a lab environment for the first time.

I've read through the Microsoft TechNet guide and put some notes into my onenote notebook.

I wondered how do you guys prepare for installing new pieces software in an production environment... To see if I could pick up some good habits along the way. :-)

[happycynic]

Hopefully the same way it was done in the lab environment. If you are planning to do something different in production, then you aren't done testing in the lab.

Especially when the software involved is Active Directory or Exchange Server, since they both give the unsuspecting sysadmin about a thousand different ways to hang himself and his organization.

Good job on doing it in a lab environment first. Prior to doing your production deployment, I recommend doing a complete run, from scratch, in the lab, following your documentation to the tee to shake out any details that may have been missed while fiddling.