Upgrade Exchange 2010 SP1 to SP2 on a single server environment

I have read a number of documents online regarding the installation of Exchange 2010 SP2 where most are quite comprehensive however they lack in clear explanation of what to do in a single server environment. Below are the steps I used to install Exchange 2010 SP2 on an Exchange 2010 SP1 UR4 single server environment that also had Forefront for Exchange installed.

Before we begin I must say this entire setup process is using the Command Line Interface. Its a very basic setup so don’t be scared of doing things using the command line.

Preparation:

Download

Get the SP2 install file from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28190

Information Collection

First off I collect information about my site that may be valuable later on.

Exchange Version – in PowerShell i run the following command:

And the output will look like this:

Schema Version – Using DSQuery check the version of your Schema (change the domain from contoso.local to your domain details.

 

And the output will look like this before the upgrade:

Post schema update shows the following output:
NOTE: The different RangeUpper versions.

System Backups

It is recommended to do the following backups of your enviroment before the upgrade:

• Active Directory backup before the schema update. Should you have to revert back because the installation corrupts your Active Directory you can do so. This i personally didn’t bother doing (aside from our nightly backups) as the chance of the installation failing is quite minimal. The bigger problem is installing the schema updates and realising there are other dependant systems that have problems with it, in which case its too late because schema updates cant be reversed.
• Exchange Server System State backup
• Exchange Server database backup
• Exchange Server OWA custom pages

AD SCHEMA updating

The AD schema gets updated through the GUI setup process automatically however you then need to confirm that replication to your domain controllers was successful. In my environment I wanted to update the schema beforehand (3 days earlier) and verify that the schema did successfully update to all Domain Controllers. This was one less change to occur on the upgrade day so less things to worry about.

The steps below are based on the following conditions:

• Enterprise Administrator account was used
• Command was run from a x64 bit machine that is on the same domain as the schema master (in our case we only have a single domain)

The steps I followed were:

From the Exchange server I opened a command prompt as administrator and ran the following commands:

This temporarily maps a network drive to the installation location, in my case a different server. Obviously you could navigate to a local drive if that is where your source files live.

From here I run the following command:

And the output will look like the below screenshot:

IIS6 WMI

Another prerequisite is to have IIS 6 WMI Compatibility installed on all CAS servers, in my case this was my only Exchange server. To install it I simply used PowerShell on the Exchange 2010 server:

And the output will look like this:

Installation

This part is the easy part. It will require an outage of about 1 hour including testing and the following procedure is what we followed:

1. Reboot Exchange server
2. Disable Forefront Protection for Exchange using the following command
   
   Visual Basic

   cd "%programfiles(x86)%\Microsoft Forefront Protection for Exchange Server" FSCutility.exe /disable

   1 2	cd "%programfiles(x86)%\Microsoft Forefront Protection for Exchange Server" FSCutility.exe /disable

   You will have an error stating some services are still running. To stop them type the following:

   Visual Basic

   NET STOP FSCCONTROLLER

   1	NET STOP FSCCONTROLLER

   Press Y to disable dependant services

   Visual Basic

   Y

   1

   Y

   Try to disable ForeFront again

   Visual Basic

   FSCutility.exe /disable

   1	FSCutility.exe /disable

   The result should look something like this:
   

4. Test basic mail functionality (refer notes below)
5. Install Exchange 2010 SP2 update using the following command
   Visual Basic

   pushd "\\server\share\microsoft\exchange2010\sp2source" SETUP /m:upgrade

   1 2	pushd "\\server\share\microsoft\exchange2010\sp2source" SETUP /m:upgrade

   The setup will run through and eventually should successfully complete. Here is the output window:
   

6. Reboot the server. The setup does not require it however its always a good idea to do so.
7. Test basic mail functionality (refer notes below)
8. Check versions of Exchange/Schema to make sure everything is correctly installed
9. Enable Forefront Protection for Exchange using the following command
   Visual Basic

   cd "%programfiles(x86)%\Microsoft Forefront Protection for Exchange Server" FSCutility.exe /enable

   1 2	cd "%programfiles(x86)%\Microsoft Forefront Protection for Exchange Server" FSCutility.exe /enable

   You will have an error stating some services are still running. To stop them type the following:

   Visual Basic

   NET STOP MSExchangeTransport NET STOP MSExchangeIS

   1 2	NET STOP MSExchangeTransport NET STOP MSExchangeIS

   Try to enable ForeFront again

   Visual Basic

   FSCutility.exe /enable

   1	FSCutility.exe /enable

   The result should look something like this:
   
   And finally run the following commands to start the services again:

   Visual Basic

   NET START MSExchangeTransport NET START MSExchangeIS

   1 2	NET START MSExchangeTransport NET START MSExchangeIS

10. Monitor event logs regarding Exchange Server

Post Installation Tasks

IIS Configuration

I had to make the following changes to IIS after the installation of SP2 as the settings were set to defaults:

1. Open IIS Manager > Select ‘Default Web Site’ > Double click ‘HTTP Redirect’
2. Check ‘Redirect requests to this destination’ and type the following URL:
   If you internal and external URL are the same: https://webmail.contoso.com/owa
   If you internal and external URL differ: /owa
3. Check ‘Only redirect requests to content in this directory (not subdirectories)’ and leave the Status code as ‘Found (302)’.
4. Click on Apply on right hand side.
5. For the below Virtual Directories please undo the set setting just applied by un-checking the HTTP Redirect setting. Be sure to click apply for each Virtual Directory.
   • aspnet_client
   • Autodiscover
   • ecp
   • EWS
   • Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync
   • OAB
   • Powershell
   • Rpc
6. Please verify that the below Virtaul Directories still have HTTP Redirect to /owa enabled on them:
   • Exchange
   • Exchweb
   • Public
7. Open IIS Manager > Select ‘Default Web Site’ > Double click ‘SSL Settings’
8. Un-check ‘Require SSL’ and click Apply.
   This will allow users who type in http://webmail.contoso.com to be redirected to https://webmail.contoso.com/owa instead of getting a 403 Accessed Denied error.

Login/Logout Pages

Although I have abandoned customised login and logout pages, it is something you will have to recreate/replace when doing the upgrade. Due to this step i have abandoned customising these pages.

Notes

Basic Exchange Test scripts

Here are the basic Exchange test scripts that I follow when I make changes in my relatively small environment: (300 users/1 server/500gb databases)

https://ivan.dretvic.com/2012/02/exchange-2010-test-scripts/

References

• Issues That Are Fixed in Exchange 2010 SP2
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh672189.aspx
• Prepare Active Directory and Domains
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125224.aspx
• Upgrading Exchange 2010 SP1 To SP2
  http://workinghardinit.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/upgrading-exchange-2010-sp1-to-sp2/
• Upgrading Exchange Server 2010 SP1 to SP2
  http://www.myexchangeworld.com/2011/12/upgrading-exchange-server-2010-sp1-to-sp2/
• Disabling or enabling the product by using the FSC utility
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd639369.aspx