Graphical user interface (GUI) enhancements in Exchange 2010 SP1

SP1 whets the appetite of administrators who want to use Exchange Management Console (EMC) and Exchange Control Panel (ECP) to administer various features. More and more features are exposed in the EMC and ECP, helping Exchange Administrators to manage their Exchange 2010 infrastructure.

Exchange 2010 SP1 brings a long list of improvements. This blog focuses mostly on the GUI enhancements both in EMC and ECP.

Deployment switch for roles and features

Deployment is the gateway after which everything else occurs. There has been a lot of work done to improve the setup experience. SP1 brings new options such as the ability for Exchange to install the OS roles and prerequisites. The prerequisite Windows features that are installed by setup are determined by the Exchange server roles selected for installation. Setup uses the appropriate XML Answer files for each server role to install the prerequisites. Only the prerequisites required for the selected server roles are installed by setup as part of the prerequisite check portion of setup before roles are installed.

If you are doing an RTM to SP1 upgrade, the CMD line command to run is "setup.com /m:upgrade /installwindowscomponents" and any of the components that the setup needs from Windows to get you to SP1 will automatically get installed by the system. The GUI equivalent of this is to check the "Automatically install Windows Server roles and features required for Exchange Server" check box. This option also appears on the Server Role Selection page when the Custom Exchange Server Installation type has been selected from the Installation Type page.

Note: If any of the components require a reboot, the system will reboot and at the end of the reboot, you will have to restart setup manually. When setup is launched after the system restart, it picks back up at the point where the restart was required

--> The rest is on the Exchange Team Blog :

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2010/10/21/456702.aspx