Windows 7 RC1 Exchange Admin and RSAT

I know it's early in the game, but the sooner MS works this out the better

I'd like to get the Exchange extensions back into the Remote Server Admin Tools (RSAT) console, supporting an Exchange 2003 Server. I've tried the "unsupported workaround" used in Vista (found at Using RSAT on Vista to Manage Exchange Attributes via ADUC), but no luck. After registering, when I try to view properties for a user or computer, the MMC just coughs up an error and hangs. I have to unregister the file(s) to get the RSAT ADUC working again.

Secondly, MS eventually released a Vista-compatible version of Exchange System Manager for Exchange 2003, but it won't install under Windows 7 ("This program requires Windows Vista" is the error at the outset). I've tried right-clicking the installer and selecting W7's compatibility check, which attempts to disable the version check of the program, but again, no dice.

So if anyone has gotten past these issues, or knows of an MS solution, please share the wealth!

I'd also like to know the answer to this. Would make life so much easier

Same here! Realizing this is an RC release BUT for us to really appreciate the product and be able to use it from 'day 1' in a production environment, this is virtually a necessity! I think we all know that we can use 'Remote Desktop' but if you only require adding an email address to a user account, forward an account's email to another user, disable 'features', etc., this is a pretty important feature
PLEASE MS, can we have this soon? Or at least some way or another to get a previous version in there? We want to use the new OS and be YOUR best promoters but if we can't use it, then how can we recommend it!

After much research, I took a shot-in-the-dark approach and it seems to have worked.

Microsoft made an Exchange 2003 System Manager MSI for Vista available some time back. Whenever I tried to install it on W7 RC1, it reported an error, "This product requires Windows Vista."

I ran the msi from the run command using the /q switch, and it work. It skipped past the error prompt and installed just fine. Started up my RSAT ADUC and there were the Exchange tabs. I am much relieved! The link to the Vista version of ESM 2003 is below; although, MS provides it in .EXE format, the /q switch may not work with the .exe. Google for the MSI or use an extractor tool to exctract the MSI from the exe provided by MS. Run it with the quiet install switch and you should be good to go. For example: E:\ESMVISTA.MSI /q

Download details: ESM for Windows Vista

Now if only they can provide a way to get the Dial-In tab to show up with the new RSAT/ADUC, I'd be set.

I did installed the ESMVISTA.MSI using /q switch. Worked well. The package got installed. Only issue I have here is, when opening the new installed ADUC it doesnt show me the exchange tabs.
The Exchange system manager (exchange 2003) is working!

Sorry to hear about the tabs. All I can suggest is checking over the following, and maybe play around with uninstal/reinstall of the ESMVISTA:

- You have "Advanced Features" view turned on in ADUC
- You installed the ESMVISTA while ADUC was closed.

Other than that, there's only one thing that might be the difference, but I can't say for sure and I'm skeptical nonetheless (as I said before, this was a shot-in-the-dark for me). Previously I had tried to get the Exchange Tabs to show up by doing the old 'unsupported' Vista method, prior to the release of the new RSAT package. You copy a bunch of .dll files from your Exchange server to your \WINDOWS\System32 folder and then register them all using regsvr32. When I did this with Windows 7 Using RSAT ADUC, it broke ADUC, I would get a couple of errors every time I tried to open the properties of an object (computer or user account), followed by an "ADUC has stopped responding and must be closed" error. So I unregistered the DLL's in order to get ADUC back to normal.

Seeing as I unregistered the exchange dll's, I don't think they left any permanent functionality behind. But maybe having the precise dll's from the actual exchange server makes a difference, who knows. If you want to experiment, I'll list the dll's I copied from my exchange server (2003 SP2) below. I wouldn't bother registering them, since that turned out badly for me. But perhaps copying them, and possibly re-installing ESMVISTA /q as well.

Other than that, I don't know why I've got the tabs and you don't. Maybe I just got lucky! I'll find out in a few months when I work with another new install.

From Exchsvr\bin
address.dll
escprint.dll
exchmem.dll
glblname.dll
maildsmx.dll
pttrace.dll

From the servers' %winroot%\system32
netui0.dll
netui1.dll
netui2.dll

All of the above should be copied/pasted into the WINDOWS\System32 folder.

Hi InsideEdge,

It works!... thanks for sharing this valuable trick.. Bravo...

Fantastic! This is soooo simple BUT so obvious. Installed a treat and everything OK Thanks!

I have made some instructions for what I did to get it working.

the full instructions are here Pyrocam.com: Your Internets are on Fire - How to get Active Directory Users and Computers with Exchange Management Tools working in Windows 7

basically its:
install rsat
activate iis/and rsat
copy/register files some files
install ESM


Hopefully this helps others who are having this problem

Thanks to pyrocam, those instructions are pretty similar to what I did to get it working (the difference being I didn't copy quite so many files to the sytem32 folder, but mine still seems to work - either procedure should work, I would think).

I've since done 3 more Windows 7 RC installs, and the procedure worked on the two 32-bit installations I've done; however, I could not get it working on the 64-bit version.