Installing Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008

LAST UDPATED: 06/10/2009 – Windows 2008 cluster deadlock issue

This is post is my attempt to bring all the materials of importance I could find about installing Exchange 2007 SP1 onto a Windows 2008 platform into one location. This post will be updated from time to time as new resources are made available.

Known Issues:

Offline Address Book (OAB) Generation Problem (Fixed with Update Rollup 5)
Endless logon prompts when using NTL M authentication (Fixed with Update Rollup 4)
Server 2008 backup is not Exchange aware (Fixed with Exchange 2007 SP2)
- Details on Exchange 2007 SP2 backups in Windows Server 2008
An in-place upgrade of Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows 2003 to Windows 2008 is NOT supported. You will have to create a new server with Windows 2008 and then either use Database Portability or Move-Mailbox to migrate your users.
Antivirus and Backups: It’s important to note that while most Antivirus and Backup platforms now support Exchange 2007 not all support Server 2008. Check with your vendor before committing to a Server 2008 deployment.
Windows 2008 cluster deadlock: In certain cases during intensive I/O operations on the Exchange Mailbox cluster server (IE: moving mailboxes or using Jetstress), the cluster server can lock up logging a error in the System Log (Windows Cluster error, Event ID: 1230, Display: clusres.dll error). There is a hotfix (KB950811) that indirectly addresses this issue. It is highly recommended that you apply this hotfix to prevent a possible deadlock issue. This hotfix has also been rolled up into Windows Server 2008 SP2. I recently experienced this issue when running Jetstress on a Exchange 2007 SP1 mailbox cluster server connected to an EMC CLARiiON CX4.

Server Software:

Testing

Trial download of Exchange 2007 SP1 available here. The trial software is only available is 32-bit.

Production:

You will need to download a licensed copy of Exchange 2007 SP1 (Std or Ent) 64-bit.

Installation:

Pre-requisites

Install the Exchange pre-requisites according to the guidelines here. This can be done autmatically with these handy XML files found here.
For a new Install simply launch the Setup and perform the install in the same manner as you would with Windows Server 2003.
If you are going to migrate your Exchange 2007 services from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008 you’ll want to take a read this. There are some extra steps that you will need to undertake to ensure all the necessary services are migrated over correctly.

Post-Installation

Hub Transport Server Role fails when IPv6 is disabled on that server – FIXED
If either of these 2 bullets occur, you need to fully disable IPv6 and not just uncheck it.
- If IPv6 is disabled prior to the installation of Exchange Server 2007, when installing the Hub Transport Server role, your Hub Transport Server role will fail to install
- If IPv6 is disabled after the installation of Exchange Server 2007, you may experience some Exchange services failing to start

Outlook Anywhere connectivity fails: This issue has been addressed with Update Rollup 4 for Exchange 2007 SP1. For reference you can read more about this problem here, and here. For steps on disabling IP6 for Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008 go here.

(FIXED) Adjust IIS7 authentication to stop endless logon prompts when using Outlook Anywhere with NTLM. Full details on this issue can be found here.

Note: This will be automatically set for you with Update Rollup 8 for Exchange 2007 SP1. If you prefer to specifiy the command manually or you just want to know what’s going on you can read more about it here.

That’s about it for now. I’ll update this post from time to time as new information comes available.