If your like me and starting to play with the new Exchange 2010 Beta, you will be happy to know that the Exchange Team have made things a little simpler out of the box for installing the Server 2008 OS pre-requisites.

The XML files for ServerManagerCMD.exe are now included on the media at “.\Scripts\Exchange-<Role>.xml”. Each role has its own .xml to be loaded atop the “Exchange-Base.xml” file, or if your lazy like me you can use the “Exchange-All.xml” to load up everything you could need. Simply run the following command to get yourself on your way

servermanagercmd.exe –ip C:\EX2K10\Scripts\Exchange-all.xml

Note. The Exchange-All.xml file includes the Failover Clustering feature which is only available on Server 2008 Enterprise edition. If you are installing onto standard, you need to comment/remove the following line in Exchange-all.xml otherwise you will receive an error.

<Feature Id="Failover-Clustering"/>

Lots of juicy details about the Beta can be found over at the Exchange Teams blog post along with the a list of other pre-reqs you need at the new Exchange 2010 TechCenter.

Beta Release Announcement - http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/04/14/451032.aspx
Exchange 2010 Beta 1 Pre-Reqs http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691354(EXCHG.140).aspx