Windows Server 2008 R2 and Exchange 2007 SP1

[Craig]

For those Administrators that are looking to run Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008 R2, you're out of luck, or at least that's what the social networking / support sites state.

Indeed for the most part, they are accurate; if you have a Windows 2008 server with Exchange 2007 installed, you will not be able to do an in place upgrade as the compatibility test requires you uninstall Exchange 2007, and will not continue setup until you do so. So if you have a large organisation, you're best to wait for Exchange 2010 which is compactable with 2008 R2 and then do a mass migration.

On the other hand, if you're testing Windows Server 2008 R2 and want to play with Exchange 2007 on the same box, there is a work around.

Once you have installed the standard server pre-reqs, extract the Exchange 2007 SP1 installers as you would usually, then right click the 'setup.exe' and adjust the settings to those at the bottom of this post (Windows 2008 SP1 compatibility mode, and check administrator privilege level).

After you have completed those steps, apply the changes and then right click setup.exe and 'run as administrator'.

If all goes according to plan, everything will install and you won't see "The error code was 3221684229" when installing the mailbox role.

So that's how to get Exchange 2007 SP1 running on Windows Server 2008 R2. Again, Microsoft are not officially supporting this application on 2008 R2, and at this moment in time I'm not sure if the installation is the only issue to appear (not sure what is / isn't working behind the scenes), so try this at your own risk, I accept no liability!

Craig

[andsome]

'er yes if you say so. :D :D