Install Exchange 2013 on Windows 2012 R2 in a Lab

Windows 2012 R2 reached the RTM state back in august 2013, and is going to be GA on October 18^th. 2013.

New software from Microsoft is always exiting and because I love my Exchange very much, and is so lucky to have access to the RTM version from MSDN, I wanted to test if Exchange 2013 CU2 could run on the brand new server platform.

February 2014 Update

With the release of service pack 1 for Exchange 2013, you are now good to go for using Exchange 2013 on Windows Server 2012 R2.

Get Service Pack 1 here

November 2013 Update

CU3 Works fine with the latest updates to Windows Server 2012 R2.

PLEASE NOTE: Microsoft DO NOT support Exchange 2013 on Windows Server 2012 R2 yet – support will come with SP1 which is scheduled to be released in the start of 2014.

Because the support from Microsoft is not there yet, I created a new lab environment to test the installation of Exchange.

The guide is how to install Exchange 2013 CU2 on Windows 2012 R2 (STILL NOT SUPPORTED BY MICROSOFT – so install on your own risk)

Use Service Pack 1 on Windows Server 2012 R2

My Lab server has these specs:

• 3 vCPU
• 6 GB RAM (it’s just a lab server)
• 200 GB Disk Space
• Windows Server 2012 R2

Before starting the exchange installation the prerequisites needs to be in place:

Roles end Features:

Run Powershell as an administrator

Install these roles and features:

Add-WindowsFeature Web-Asp-Net,Web-Client-Auth,Web-Dir-Browsing,Web-Http-Errors,Web-Http-Logging,Web-Http-Redirect,Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console,Web-Metabase,Web-WMI,Web-Net-Ext,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Digest-Auth,Web-Dyn-Compression,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Request-Monitor,Web-Static-Content,Web-Http-Tracing,WAS-Process-Model,Web-Mgmt-Console,Desktop-Experience,NET-Framework-Core,RPC-over-HTTP-Proxy,Telnet-Client,Windows-Server-Backup,RSAT-Clustering,RSAT-NLB,RSAT-ADDS,GPMC,Failover-Clustering,RSAT-Clustering-CmdInterface –Restart

Next install these from Microsoft:

Office 2010 Filterpack: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17062

Office 2010 Filterpack, Service Pack 2: http://www.microsoft.com/da-dk/download/details.aspx?id=39668

UCMA: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34992

If you have installed Exchange 2013 before you will notice that the prereq. is exactly the same as on the Old Windows Server 2012

When these components is installed, we are ready to install Exchange 2013.

You should install the latest version, which is at this time is CU2  Service Pack 1 (find it here: http://exchangepro.dk/exchange-ressources/exchange-2013-updates/)

Unpack CU2 SP1 to a directory and find setup.exe

Right click on setup.exe and choose “Run as administrator”

Click Next

Click Next

Select Next

Read the EULA, and if you can agree to the terms then accept it and click Next. If you cant shutdown you server and see Stargate SG1 instead.

Select “Use recommended setting” and click Next

Select all roles and click Next

Click Next

Give you new Lab organization a name and click Next

Click Next

Click on Install

After a while the installation is finished

You are now ready to test your new Exchange 2013 server, which now run on Windows Server 2012 R2.

You can access the Exchange Administration center on this url: https://FQDN-Server-name/ecp

Login with you Administrator Account and you are ready to configure Exchange – which you also can do from powershell.