Setup Programs

You may need to provide a setup program for your server application (mailbox agent or gateway) or client application that includes a server component. This setup program will allow users to install, configure, and remove your application within the Microsoft Exchange Server environment.

This section describes how to write a setup program and identifies the most important installation tasks the program will need to perform. Because an application may need to store and use data from the first time it runs, this section also discusses ways to do this. For example, if an application uses extension data, this data may need to be set up during installation.

For more on writing an application as a service of Windows NT Server, see the information about services and the service control manager in the Platform SDK.

For general information on writing setup programs, see Setup API in the Platform SDK.

Note  The installation and configuration of a server application are closely related tasks because applications are usually configured during installation. Moreover, setup and administration operations interact with many of the same components within Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Windows NT Server. Examples given apply to server applications that run as services of Windows NT Server in the Microsoft Exchange Server environment.