Exchange 2013 ECP – :-( Something Went Wrong

Fresh deployment of Exchange 2013.  As you try to connect to the management console https://localhost/ecp/ with a valid administrator account, it redirects to OWA and responds with “:-( Something Went Wrong, A problem occurred when trying to use your mailbox.”

This seems to be related to left over Exchange attributes in Active Directory.  I tried everything from a multitude of TechNet articles including the following: Read More

Exchange 2013 Schema Prep – ADC Found

Installing a new Exchange 2013 deployment on an existing domain with questionable history.  The existing domain had untold number of previous Exchange deployments with remnants scattered throughout Active Directory.  After using ADSI edit to manually remove all instances of the old Exchange servers, running a schema prep runs in to an error about an existing Active Directory Connector.  Microsoft suggests (TechNet) disabling the ADC service on the running computer, then uninstalling the service using the exchange server installation CD.  In this situation of course the detected ADC was probably on a computer that was long ago trashed or removed.

Lots of websites describe the method for removing ADCs from AD using ADSIedit. Read More