Exchange Solutions

For those of you with Exchange 2013 on Server 2012 RTM (not R2), you will run across two additional prerequisites while upgrading to the latest cumulative update.

The first prerequisite is a hotfix for the Resilient File System (KB 2894875). While it was only with the advent of Exchange 2016 that ReFS made it into the preferred architecture, ReFS was supported in Exchange 2013. Whether or not you are using ReFS you are still required to get the update. The hotfix addresses an issue where the operating system can freeze while trying to perform a DIR command on a ReFS volume. Nuts huh?

The second prerequisite is a hotfix for the Virtual Disk Service (KB 2884597). To quote Microsoft.

That does not sound good!

Download the fixes

For more information and to download both hotfixes check these links:

Windows Server 2012-based computer freezes when you run the “dir” command on a ReFS volume

Virtual Disk Service or applications that use the Virtual Disk Service crash or freeze in Windows Server 2012

The hotfixes are only available by registering an email address to download.

Both fixes will require a reboot once you install them. The installer will also stop you from continuing until you have them.

While trying to import a 3rd-party SSL certificate into Exchange I received the following error.

This was odd because it was my first time running through the import process on this server. Puzzled, I refreshed the Exchange Admin Center. As expected, no new certificates showed up. Just the default out-of-the-box certificates that come preinstalled with Exchange.

As a sanity check, I confirmed with PowerShell.

 C:\> Get-ExchangeCertificate

Thumbprint                                Services   Subject
----------                                --------   -------
87957CA95B833615C71F7735853CE811F96E6117  IP.WS..    CN=EX16-02
40B938448B42F1D596E9DBB0EC666D8666725E07  .......    CN=WMSvc-EX16-02
1C6E03C3BDCBFD76FAA1375B7D2B4ED1291A0FCF  ....S..    CN=Microsoft Exchange Server Auth Certificate

But as expected 559642FCD3DD4769D79A457D11875AF9E6E49F3C was not returned.

One of the common problems we see with antivirus is that it sends Exchange installs to a painful crawl. It becomes particularly apparent during the Languages step. I have personally witnessed this behavior during both Exchange 2010 and 2013 upgrades. The issue is the file-level antivirus. In particular real-time protection. If enabled it can cause Exchange installs to take several hours.

The solution–disable real-time protection before installing or upgrading Exchange.

In fact, make sure you have all the exceptions in place as outlined by this Microsoft TechNet article. At a very minimum I recommend to exclude–from all scans–the entire Exchange install directory, transport files, IIS files and, the entire drive (or mount point) where each database and its associated log files reside. If you have a DAG exclude the witness directory and the cluster database files.

Note: With all the hooks that antivirus has into the OS disabling real-time protection might not be enough. In some cases temporarily uninstalling antivirus might be the answer.

But how do we know its antivirus?

One of the common symptoms is high CPU utilization. Bringing up task manager we can see that antivirus is very active during the Exchange install.

As soon as we disable real-time protection CPU utilization drops and the Languages step completes in a few minutes.

Below are the instructions on disabling real-time protection for Microsoft SCEP.

Disable real-time protection (System Center Endpoint Protection)

To disable real-time protection in System Center Endpoint Protection (SCEP) perform the following steps:

Double-click the EndPoint Protection () icon in the taskbar.

Select the Settings tab. Select Real-time protection.

Uncheck Turn on Real-time Protection (recommended).

Click Save Changes.

How about you? Have you experienced upgrade slowdowns from real-time protection? Do you think we need file-level antivirus on Exchange servers at all? Drop a comment below.

I was helping a friend recently update his Exchange servers. When we launched the cumulative update we ran into this error.

Unable to remove product with code 4934d1ea-be46-48b1-8847-f1af20e892c1. Fatal error during installation. Error code is 1603. Last error reported by the MSI package is 'The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2330.'

According to this reference guide from DesktopEngineer.com Error Code 2330 translates to ‘Error getting file attributes’.

Ruh-roh! That sounds like file corruption.

When exploring the Application Log we discovered a number of 10005 MSIINSTALLER errors.